Class 



Book 

PRESENTKD BY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



"ART AND PERSONALITY" in PERSONAL 
IDEALISM: Philosophical Essays. Edited by 
H, Sturt. Macmillan. 

IDOLA THEATRI: Criticisms of Oxford 
Thought and Thinkers. Macmillan. 

THE IDEA OF A FREE CHURCH. Watts. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF UNDERSTANDING. 
Cambridge University Press. 



SOCIALISM AND CHARACTER 



This work has been published partly at the 
expense of the TuUoch and Barr publishing 
fund, instituted as a Memorial of WiUiam 
Tulloch and Dr. Hugh Barr, members of the 
Fabian Society, v/ho lost their lives in the Great 
War. 



SOCIALISM AND 
CHARACTER 



HENRY STURT, M.A. 

LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES 



E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
68 1 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
1922 



am 

PiibligbeiF 

£5 im 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER I 

SCOPE OF BOOK 

§ I. Our present individualist system causes many 
evils, 

§ 2. and should be replaced by socialism. 

§ 3. The book aims at showing how human character 
will be improved by socialism, and what the 
institutions of socialism will be. 



CHAPTER II 
MODERN SOCIALISM 

§ I. Modern socialism aims chiefly at the equitable 

distribution of wealth. 
§ 2. The chief obstacle in its way is the reluctance of 

the rich to surrender their wealth, motived 

by the instincts of property and of command. 
§ 3, These instincts need regulation, especially the 

latter. 

§ 4. To complete their programme socialists ought to 
check, not only the domination of rich over 
poor, but also the domination of man over 
woman. 



8 



CONTEXTS 



PAGE 

§ 5. Property and domination have been much regu- 
lated in the past ; sociahsm only carry 
the regulation a stage further forward. 34 



PART I 
THE COMMONWEALTH 

CHAPTER III 
WEALTH 

§ 1. Part I of the book explains the organization of 
the community which will be needed to carry 
sociahsm into effect. 39 

§ 2. As being a primary?- condition of welfare, wealth 
should be well-regulated in respect of its pro- 
duction, distribution and consumption. 40 

§3. In our present individuahst state wealth is ill- 
distributed. 43 
§ 4. The true principle to be observed in distribution 
is that the share of the citizen should be pro- 
portional to the pubhc service which he 
renders. 44 
I 5. We must apply reform to the causes through 
which men grow excessive^ rich, such as 
{a) our land S5^stem, (6) public debt, 46 
§ 6. (c) inheritance, 48 
§ 7. [d] capitalism, 49 
§ 8. and {e) special industrial ability. Checks to the 
accumulation of wealth must be applied with 
caution, 51 



CONTENTS 



§ 9. Wealth cannot be distributed equally unless pro- 
duction is socialized. 
§10. This will also conduce to a more abundant produc- 
tion of wealth. 

§11. The socialist state will regulate consumption. 

§12. The socialist will be wealthier than the individualist 
community. 

CHAPTER IV 
ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 

§ I. Industry under sociaUsm will be non-capitalist. 

It will aim at producing an adequate and 
steady supply of goods 

§ 2. with good conditions of labour, and regular 
employment for the workpeople. 

§ 3. The commonwealth will accumulate capital, avoid- 
ing the present evils of waste and of over- 
saving. 

§ 4. Performance of services and production of goods 
will be done in the socialist state by various 
agencies ; e.g., by the imperial government, 
by sub-national governments, by local 
authorities. 

§ 5. by co-operative societies, by philanthropic trusts 

and by guilds of producers. 
§ 6. The sociahst state will always have some private 

industry. It will gain by its variety of 

economic organization. 



10 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER V 
GOVERNMENT 

PAGE 

§ I. We shall always need government, and more than 

ever under socialism. 74 

§ 2. The government of the socialist state will continue 

to be democratic, 76 

§ 3. with an improved civil service 77 

§ 4. and an improved parliament. 81 

§ 5. The principle of giving salaries to elected repre- 
sentatives will be extended to local elective 
bodies. 82 

§ 6. When our constitution reaches equilibrium the 

party-system will be obsolete. 84 

§ 7. Government will be stronger than now, though 

less pompous. 85 



CHAPTER VI 
CHILDREN 

§ I. Individualism has a dysgenic influence: the 
upper classes are sterilized, the hand-workers 
suffer hardship in rearing families ; the 
poorest stocks multiply recklessly. 87 

§ 2. Socialism will remedy these evils by relieving the 
professional class of economic anxiety. It 
will give maintenance-allowances for children, 
while checking large families. 89 

§ 3. It will issue licences to marry and will inspect 

families. 92 

§ 4. The regulation of population will be done by 

women. 93 

§ 5. Socialist regulation will improve the family. 95 



CONTENTS 



11 



§ 6. There are naturally some anti-social influences in 
family life which need to be checked by 
public authority. 97 

CHAPTER VTI 
THE STATUS OF WOMEN 

§ r. In order that socialism may be workable, women 

must be put on an equality with men. 99 

§ 2. The domination of men over women was necessary 

in early society, but is necessary no longer. 100 

§ 3. The chief means of giving equalitv^ to women is 
to pay them for their services as wives and 
mothers. 102 

§4. The payment would not be excessively burden- 
some, nor cause family discord, nor make 
marriage mercenary. 105 

§ 5. Admission of women to the full status of citizen- 
ship will promote the reform of morals by 
means of legislation, 109 

§6, and prevent violent revolution and war, iii 



PART II 
CHARACTER 

CHAPTER VIII 
FREE CITIZENSHIP 

§ I. Socialism wiU give to every member of the state 
the character of free citizenship ; whereas at 
present our workpeople are partially enslaved. 115 

§ 2. A condition of slavery is unfavourable to manliness, 

to the domestic virtues and to patriotism. 117 

§ 3. The characteristic quality of the free citizen is 

self-respect. 123 



\ 



12 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IX 
THE LIFE OF ACTION 



§ I. Under socialism there will be a call for manlv 

qualities, especially those of command, 125 

§2. and there vdll be due opportunities for ambition, 127 

§3. for emulation, 129 

§4. for the display of courage 131 

§ 5. and for foreign adventure. 133 
§ 6. Arrangements vrill be made to give men a varied 

experience of life. 135 
§ 7. If suitable measures are taken, there vdll be due 

openings for men of practical originahty. 157 



CHAPTER X 
PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 

§ I. The public affections, such as patriotism, are 
earlier than the private, and are necessary 
to national welfare. 140 

§ 2. The basis of patriotism is instinctive, but it also 

imphes a rational admiration for one ' s countrs^ . 141 

§ 3. There will be more patriotism in the socialist state 

than there is now. 142 

§ 4. Patriotism cannot be replaced by human brother- 
hood, 144 

§5. or by international sentiment. 145 

§ 6. The separateness of nations conduces to progress. 148 

§ 7. Under sociaKsm there wUl be more objects upon 
which public affections can be directed ; and 
it will be the care of the state to encourage 
public affections among the citizens. 150 



CONTEXTS 



13 



CHAPTER XI 
PRIVATE AFFECTIONS 

PAGE 

§ I. Socialism wUl strengthen private affections, because 
a moderate share of wealth is favourable to 
family life ; 153 

§ 2. whereas indi\'iduaUsm both hmits the number of 
those who can fully enjoy family hfe, and also 
aggravates the anti-social element in the 
family. 154 

§ 3. Friendship is based upon communitv' of interest, 

which vrill prevail under sociahsm ; 156 

§ 4. whereas indi\T.duahst competition produces con- 
flict of interest. 158 

§ 5. Sociahsm will raise the standard of morahty in 

business hfe. 159 

CHAPTER XII 
THE LXFLUENCE OF WOMAN 

§ I. Under sociahsm the mliuence of v/oman will be 
increased, which ^yill make society more 
refined. 163 

§ 2. Increase of female influence will have no counter- 
vailing drawback ; such faults as women now 
display are due mainly to their economic 
dependence. 166 

§ 3. Women approve of the kind of male character 

which is brave without being cruel, 170 

§ 4. which is temperate, 171 

§ 5. and in which the sex-instinct is gratified by faint 

stimulation 173 

§ 6. and is sublimated. 173 



14 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 

PAGE 

§ I. There cannot be a high intellectual level under 

individualism. 178 
§ 2. Under socialism there will be more scope for 

intelligence in the daily business of life, 180 
§ 3. while political conditions will be favourable to 

the highest intellectual production. 183 
§ 4. And original thinking will not be repressed, as it 

is now, by orthodoxy 186 
§ 5. and by capitalism. 188 

CHAPTER XIV 
HAPPINESS 

§ I. The citizens of the socialist commonwealth will 
be well-disposed towards it and towards each 
other. 191 

§ 2. They will then have it in their power to be happy, 193 

CHAPTER XV 
STANDARDS OF TASTE 

§ I. The moral reform which socialism will involve 

will change our standards of taste. 196 

§ 2. We shall cease to admire many of our present 
objects of decoration, because they are 
slavish, 198 

§ 3. wasteful, and full of pretence. 201 

§ 4. There will be change in literary taste ; much of 

the old work will become alien to us. 204 

§ 5. The standards of taste under socialism will con- 
form to the new social organization, m 



INTRODUCTION 



CHAPTER I 



SCOPE OF BOOK 

§ I. Our present individualist system causes many 

evils. 

Can anyone who is not utterly callous profess himself 
to be content with our present social system ? If 
he is content, he must either be blind or live far 
remote from our main centres of population. Let 
him visit the nearest industrial city and then defend, 
if he can, the system which brings such places into 
existence. Our industrial cities produce the wealth 
which is necessary to modern civilization ; and what 
sinks of misery they are ! Everyone detests them, 
except perhaps the capitalists who grow rich 
there. What English family would choose to live 
in Sheffield or Wolverhampton, still less in that 
full-blown growth of competitive commercialism, the 
East End of London ? The material evils of our 
system are gross and palpable, and have made us 
a byword of reproach throughout the world. But 
corresponding to them there is also a spiritual mis- 
chief, which is even more deplorable to a thoughtful 
mind ; a low morality, which is not confined to 
the poor people who live in the slums but spreads 
corruptingly through every rank and class of the 
community. 

The characteristic defects of our society, I hold. 



18 



INTRODUCTION 



are due to individualism ; by which term I mean 
the way of distributing wealth whereby men scramble 
for it according to each individual's strength and 
cunning. In Maine's Popular Government (p. 50) 
there is a priceless passage which ought to be engraved 
upon a tablet of brass and set up on a pillar some- 
where east of the Tower of London — best perhaps 
upon the broad pavement of the Mile End Road. 
*' The motives which impel mankind to produce 
wealth are such as infallibly entail inequality in 
distribution. They are the springs of action called 
into activity by the strenuous and never-ceasing 
struggle for existence, the beneficent private war 
which makes one man strive to climb upon the 
shoulders of another and remain there through the 
law of the survival of the fittest." What a comfort 
it should be to the poor citizens of East London 
to know that their slums are just the outcome of 
that great good natural law of the survival of the 
fittest ! But really we ought to be grateful to Sir 
Henry Maine ; he has put the matter in a nutshell 
for us. Beneficent private war ! "I thank thee, 
Jew, for teaching me that word." Our commercial 
system is indeed a kind of private war ; not at all 
beneficent, I should say, but full of the cruelty of 
warfare in its meanest and most selfish form. If we 
want to understand its results, we can walk along 
Regent Street and Piccadilly in the evening, and 
observe the interrelation between riches and vice ; 
and then we can take the Tube eastwards and study 
the shabby crowd that surges along the noisy boule- 
vard of the Mile End Road. The Mile End Road 
should have shaken Sir Henry Maine's complacency, 
if anything could ; but probably he had never 



SCOPE OF BOOK 



19 



travelled so far eastwards in London as that. Pros- 
perous academic apologists of individualism usually 
confine themselves to the West End. 

Long before the Great War came upon us, thinking 
men had seen the rottenness of individualism ; but 
its apologists still boasted that, though it might be 
ugly in parts and perhaps illogical, it was practically 
efficient and strong. The war destroyed that im- 
posture for ever. An individualist state is essentially 
feeble ; it is torn by conflicting interests, greeds 
and ambitions, and is slow and ineffective in action. 
Our rulers discovered that it could neither find the 
men nor produce the material for a first-class war. 
To get the material they had to socialize the agencies 
of production ; to get the men for the fighting line 
they had to give up individualist methods, which 
are so wasteful of labour, and introduce some ele- 
ments of scientific organization. ^ Now that the war 
is ended, we have retraced our steps and gone back 
to individualism ; and we shall certainly be beaten 
in the next war if we have to encounter an enemy 
organized by the methods of socialism. 

It was the sinister interests of our society that 
clamoured to return to the old " beneficent private 
war " ; they wanted the confusion back again 
through which they had grown rich and powerful. 
The danger from foreign enemies has passed away 
for a time ; but the moral mischief of individualism 
is as deadly as ever. This private war corrupts 
every part of our national life : it stimulates un- 
wholesomely the grasping and domineering instincts 
of our nature ; it drags the masses down into a 

I Detailed proofs may be found in Sir L. Chiozza Money's 
admirable book, The Triumph of Nationalization. 



20 



INTRODUCTION 



condition of semi-slavery and puffs up the directing 
classes into petty tyrants ; it makes the rich de- 
generate and the poor coarse and brutal ; it deadens 
social sympathy and public spirit and makes society 
full of injustice and hatred ; it hardens our hearts 
to the influences of friendship ; it darkens and 
cripples the lives of children and degrades women ; 
it suffocates the wider spiritual interests which give 
dignity and beauty to human life ; it stupefies and 
vulgarizes us. In short it is war, without the heroism 
and devotion which light up the terrors of a conflict 
against a public enemy. 

Preachers may preach, but profiteers will turn 
deaf ears to them. The plainest proofs that indi- 
vidualism is morally corrupting will weigh as nothing 
with our plutocratic leading class. What may touch 
their minds is the danger of a violent revolution 
if we go on with our present system. Such a revo- 
lution will certainly come, if we lose a European 
war. In any great conflict of the future our small 
professional army will be useless ; the whole manhood 
of the nation must stand to arms. But our working 
people will not fight unless they have a country 
worth fighting for. In the last war they fought 
well, because we were all enraged by the methods 
of the enemy and conscious that the existence of 
democracy in Europe was at stake. That danger 
is now past ; despotism in Europe has been crushed 
for ever : in future we shall have to rely upon the 
ordinary motives of rational patriotism. Now, do 
we really think that intelligent working men are 
going to bleed and suffer for those filthy industrial 
cities in which most of them live ? Are we going 
to call upon the slum-dwellers of East London to 



SCOPE OF BOOK 



n 



rally round the mansions of Mayfair and Belgravia ? 
Unless we begin in earnest to socialize our country, 
we shall be beaten in the next great war ; and 
then a burst of popular fury will sweep away the 
whole capitalist system, as it did in Russia. Many 
thoughtful people believe that this would actually 
have happened if we had been beaten. If Germany 
had had twenty or thirty extra submarines at the 
critical period, we might be living now under a red 
Republic. 

§ 2. And should be replaced by socialism. 

We cannot remedy the material and moral evils 
of England unless we adopt some intelligent plan 
of distributing wealth. To expect to achieve a 
cure by means of exhortation or philanthropy is 
futile and childish ; it is like applying soothing 
lotions to a dislocated limb, or trying to abolish 
destitution in the East End by building homes for 
waifs and strays. We must establish an organization 
which will regulate wisely the natural desire of 
acquiring wealth. If regulated, the desire is bene- 
ficent ; otherwise, maleficent. When men are stimu- 
lated by any powerful desire and are acting without 
guidance, they hinder and irritate each other and 
become furious. In the panic of a shipwreck all 
kindly feeling and reflection disappear ; men fight 
and struggle horribly, and even kill each other. 
So it is in our industrial society under the excite- 
ment of gain ; each man scrimmages for what he 
can get and tramples upon his neighbours without 
remorse. The socialist is one who detests this 
hideous confusion. He believes that our social evils 



22 



INTRODUCTION 



are due, not to the badness of human nature, but 
to want of regulation. Let distribution be made 
upon a proper plan ; let men co-operate intelligently 
instead of climbing madly upon one another's 
shoulders, and then the better elements of human 
nature will prevail. The socialist does not want 
to systematize merely from the love of system, but 
in order to improve the personal character of his 
fellow-citizens. 

The theoretical foundations of sociahsm must be 
got from the mental and moral sciences ; from 
psychology, moral philosophy, political economy and 
sociology. By the first of these we learn what ele- 
ments there are in human nature ; by the second, 
what good character is, and how its formation may 
be encouraged ; while the third and fourth deal 
with wealth and the laws of social combination. 
The conclusions of the philosopher should not be 
merely theoretical ; they should be such as to help 
practical men in dealing with social problems. 

Therefore we must work with ideas which are 
truer to human nature than those which prevailed 
in England when Maine's Popular Government was 
written. Maine himself was no philosopher ; such 
thought as lies behind his magniloquent sentences 
was borrowed by him from Herbert Spencer and 
Darwin. Now, Darwin was much too modest and 
too fully conscious of the limitations of the scientist 
to dogmatize on questions of moral philosophy. 
But Spencer was full of presumption, and blinded 
by the prejudices of the current individualism. 
He was brought up to admire the competition of 
English country shopkeepers, and thought he could 
defend it by analogies from biology. He did not 



SCOPE OF BOOK 



23 



see that the competition of animals for the means 
of subsistence is totally different from the co-operative 
division of labour hy which wealth is created in 
civilized communities. * Survival of the fittest ' is 
a good principle for hawks and tigers ; it produces 
great individual excellence of physique and some 
valuable qualities of mind : but there is no simi- 
larity between the life of such creatures and that 
of civilized men. 

§ 3. The book aims at showing how human character 
will he improved hy socialism, and what the 
institutions of socialism will he. 

The main purpose of the book is to show what 
improvements in personal character may be looked 
for as the result of framing a better social organiza- 
tion, and in particular of distributing wealth upon 
an equitable system. As a preliminary it will be 
necessary to describe in outline the kind of social 
organization towards which I think that socialists 
ought to work. The ordinary programme of social- 
ism seems to me to be too narrow ; for one thing, 
the claim of the hand-workers to an equitable share 
of wealth cannot be satisfied, unless we satisfy also 
a claim which is near akin to it though not identical, 
the claim of women to full political and economic 
justice. And there are yet other changes involved, 
affecting deeply the intimate relations of the family. 
Wealth is a fundamental factor in human life ; we 
cannot alter its distribution without modifying 
deeply the rest of our social system. 

The moral improvement which may be looked 
for will extend through every part of conduct and 



24 



INTRODUCTION 



influence every element of character. There is an 
infinite difference between the private war of selfish 
greed and the peace and friendship which spring 
from intelligent co-operation. The greatness of the 
change can be appreciated only if we realize how 
imperfect our current standards and practice are. 
To bring this home to the reader will compel me 
to say much in criticism of contemporary society. 
It is not a pleasant task to point out the defects 
of a system in which one has been reared ; I should 
not take it up except for the sake of pointing forward 
to a happier future. 



CHAPTER II 



MODERN SOCIALISM 

§ I. Modem socialism aims chiefly at the equitable 
distribution of wealth. 

The aims of modern socialism are in appearance 
sharply contrasted with those of older thinkers ; 
we lay far more stress than they did upon political 
economy. The ancient communists and fashioners 
of Utopias thought little of wealth. Plato, the first 
and greatest of them all, valued nothing but intel- 
lectual excellence and virtue ; property he wished 
to abolish altogether, so far as concerned the best 
of his citizens. In our own country the idealistic 
communists, such as Robert Owen, thought mainly 
of human brotherhood and moral regeneration. 
The new era begins with Karl Marx ; he was the 
first to see that to attain a satisfactory social re- 
construction we must reform the productive agencies 
of society. Such then has been the order of develop- 
ment, from idealism to practicality. This I believe 
to be the proper order. The old theories were 
splendid, but impossible ; and yet they were the 
right theories for their age. In every great move- 
ment the visionaries — the poets, prophets and 
philosophers — appear first ; when they have kindled 
enthusiasm and diffused conviction, then comes the 
time for the practical men. 

But though modern socialism is economic and 

25 



26 



INTRODUCTION 



deals so much with statistics and percentages, we 
must not overlook its moral quality. The motives 
of those who lead the movement are not sordid, nor 
is wealth a sordid thing. We must clear our minds 
of old prejudices and phrases about covet ousness 
and filthy lucre. Wealth, the supply of goods for 
human use, demoralizes us only when we have too 
much of it. Men cannot be properly virtuous or 
have the proper character of citizenship when they 
are exposed to the miseries of want. There is no 
moral declension in modern socialism. 

The chief aim of the modern socialist is to equalize 
the distribution of wealth ; or, more accurately, to 
distribute it upon equitable principles. To accom- 
plish this he holds that it is necessary to institute 
an elaborate system of public ownership and service, 
which will make the equitable distribution permanent. 
Everybody agrees that it would be useless merely 
to take away any property from those who have 
and give it to those who have not ; the causes which 
produced inequality before would soon produce it 
again. This is why socialists advocate public owner- 
ship of land and capital and public performance of 
services of general utilit}'. 

Such is the modern socialist programme. I think 
that it is too narrow, and that it will be found to 
be too narrow, when it is either worked out in practice 
or thought out in theor}^ Redistribution of wealth 
cannot be effected without a thoroughgoing social 
reorganization. But let all this stand over for a 
little w^hile. The programme is good, so far as it 
goes ; and it is practicable, if not at once, at least 
in the not-distant future. And we can begin at 
once to take preliminary steps towards it. 



MODERN SOCIALISM 



27 



§ 2. The chief obstacle in its way is the reluctance of 
the rich to surrender their wealth, motived hy 
the instincts of property and of command. 

I The aims of the sociaHst cannot be achieved 
without conflict ; there are powerful influences 
which have to be counteracted, a stiff resistance 
which will have to be broken down. The possession 
of riches is demoralizing ; Scripture tells us so, and 
perhaps many wealthy churchmen would admit 
that Scripture is right, if pressed in argument. All 
the same, they don't want to give up their riches. 
Their resistance may justify itself by various argu- 
ments, such as that socialism is ungodly (which is 
not easy to reconcile with certain texts in the Gospels), 
or that it attacks the family, or that it is hostile to 
the great man " (this is Mr. Mallock's special 
contribution) ; but the simple fact is that those 
who have want to keep. This is not unnatural. 
Riches are superfluous now for any good and useful 
purpose ; but they gratify two very powerful and 
ancient instincts, the proprietary instinct and the 
instinct of domination or command. 

The proprietary instinct must have begun in 
human history as soon as our ancestors got tools 
and other things for use or enjoyment ; the purpose 
of making is frustrated if the agent cannot keep 
what he has made. The instinct is greatly strength- 
ened when man has reached a stage when he can 
possess a home. Men who wander continually and 
live by hunting can possess but little ; but, if they 
live in fixed habitations, they can shelter their goods 
and add continually to their store. This is the 
proprietary instinct in its primary and salutary 



28 



INTRODUCTION 



form ; later it develops into a more or less artificial 
taste for acquisition. With the advance of civiliza- 
tion and with om- contrivances for creating and 
perpetuating inequalities of wealth, the desire of 
acquisition is directed upon objects which are widely 
different from the original objects of human property. 
A man can look with proprietary interest upon a 
field, or even upon a wide-stretching landscape ; he 
can feel proprietorship in stocks and shares which 
represent objects lying on the other side of the 
globe, or in minerals which lie hidden deep in the 
earth and from which he will draw revenue though 
he may never see them. 

But riches gratify an instinct which is even stronger 
than the proprietary, the instinct of domination or 
command. Wealth is power ; the possession of 
wealth enables a man to have influence over the 
minds and bodies of those around him. 

The love of power is older than the love of property. 
The higher animals, or such of them as live in packs 
or herds and co-operate in work, need leaders who 
have the capacity of direction. Of all co-operating 
creatures man is the chief ; the tasks which he 
undertakes are infinitely more numerous and various 
than those of the others, and require more movements 
and muscular exertions. Moreover, the work of men, 
unlike that of animals, is largely prospective ; it 
has reference to the future and consists in providing 
for developments which will shortly arise, but of 
which there is yet no hint in present surroundings. 
Hence leaders of men must be not only workers 
but thinkers ; they need continually to be giving 
orders and exhortations to their subordinates : and 
this, no doubt, was how speech came into being. 



MODERN SOCIALISM 



29 



Corresponding to the need of command there exists 
among men an instinct of command, and also a 
pleasure in the exercise of the instinctive faculty. 
There are very few men who are not at some time 
or other set over their fellows ; and, where they 
exercise command successfully, they take pleasure 
in it. What are called in France the ' directing 
classes ' have it as their special function to supply 
persons possessing such natural gifts ; from them 
we draw the ' officers ' of our social organization. 
In some exceptional cases, such as Napoleon, the 
passion of domineering determines the man's whole 
scheme of life. 



§ 3. These instincts need regulation, especially the 

latter. 

The instincts of property and of command are in 
no way to be eradicated or frowned upon ; in their 
due place they are absolutely necessary to human 
welfare. We shall always need objects of personal 
property and houses which have to be furnished 
and beautified ; and our commonwealth will always 
need leaders for guidance in action and thought. 
Indeed, as society grows more complicated and its 
tasks more extensive and various, leadership becomes 
more and more necessary. We may go even further 
than this ; we may admit that in the past there 
has been utility in a development of these tendencies 
which now, in a more advanced social stage, must 
be regarded as excessive. I do not see how civiliza- 
tion could have begun without the establishment 
of political systems or states. Now the origin of 
the state is in warfare ; and wars were made and 



30 



INTRODUCTION 



armies created by ambitious chiefs wlio, being dis- 
satisfied with the opportunities of domination afforded 
by the tribe, set about forming kingdoms by con- 
quering their neighbours. Nor do I see how societies 
could have become cultured without the existence 
of persons possessing riches. And riches are accu- 
mulated by men who have the passion of acquisition 
and bequeath fortunes to descendants, who are 
freed thereby from material anxieties and can pay 
some attention to culture. 

These, then, are the two instincts which prompt 
men to cling to riches ; we ought to try to under- 
stand the motives of the rich. None the less we 
must insist that the time has now come when these 
motives must be limited more strictly than of old. 
The world has no use any longer for ambitious 
kings who make war upon their neighbours, or for 
men who pile up great fortunes in business. The 
suffering and evil which they cause outweigh the 
gain. 

It is the abuse of wealth which makes the more 
odious show, and draws upon itself the moral in- 
dignation of those who are earnest for social progress. 
We hate the insolent and wasteful display of opulence, 
the flaunting feathers and silks, the monstrous 
houses, the stables, motor-cars and gamekeepers, 
just as we hate the coarse magnificence of barbarous 
kings. Above all we hate the manners — the pre- 
sumptuous, contemptuous tone which is encouraged 
by the possession of great wealth. It is the acquisi- 
tive passion which socialists declare against ; it is 
the tangible results of acquisition which offend us 
and which we wish to sweep away. But the real 
enemy is the desire of domination ; if we could put 



MODERN SOCIALISM 31 

limits to that, we should not have much trouble 
with acquisition. 

Consider for a moment why men desire riches ; 
surely the main impelling motive is the love of 
power. Even if a rich man has not the native gift of 
command, his wealth at least gives him the show of 
it ; everybody is outwardly civil to him. WTierever 
he goes he enjoys the envy of the poor, and tradesmen 
await his orders with respect. It can be nothing 
but this motive that makes men desire great establish- 
ments ; othervvise a very large house, much larger 
than one family can properly enjoy, would seem to 
be merely a burden. A great establishment monopo- 
lizes the time of those who are at the head of it ; 
as Carl^'le said somewhere of some of his aristocratic 
friends, their whole time is spent in the mere business 
of li\'ing. The main pleasure of a great house 
depends upon the servants ; its master is a kind of 
king ; he stands continually in a position of authority. 
A king is nothing if he have no subjects, a preacher 
nothing without an audience ; and so riches are a 
mere potentiality, unless the rich man can surround 
himself with beings upon whom he can exercise his 
powder. 

The motive which makes men pursue great wealth 
is, I think, psychologically different from the instinct 
of property, the genuine love of possessing things of 
use and ornament. The possessions of the lover 
of riches are often no more than an instrument of 
his power or an advertisement to announce his 
power to the world. Sometimes we see mien who 
are keen pursuers of wealth, but are definitely lacking 
in the genuine proprietary instinct. They live hard 
and frugal lives, with poor and simple furniture 



32 



INTRODUCTION 



and clothing for their personal use. Such a life is 
said, I do not know with what truth, to be lived by 
some of those typical kings of riches, the millionaires 
of the United States.^ 

In the commonwealth of the future the love of 
power will receive all the gratification that is rightly 
due to it ; those who are competent to exercise 
authority are sure to get high positions assigned to 
them. Probably the same sort of men will make 
their way to the front as now obtain success in trade 
and the lucrative professions. But the love of power 
will be purified and ennobled by devotion to the 
public service, and we shall be rid of those useless 
beings who by accident of birth are in authoritative 
positions without any real capacity for command. 

§ 4. To complete their programme socialists ought to 
check, not only the domination of rich over 
poor, hut also the do^nination of man over 
woman. 

If the excessive love of domination is really the 
main obstacle to socialism, the programme which 
sociaHsts put forward ought to be greatly enlarged. 
We ought to curb all undue development of the 
passion, and not that only which manifests itself 
in the accumulation of riches. Our people cannot 
be free and happy so long as they are exposed to 
the pressure of excessive domination in any form. 
The practical application of this principle is that the 
consistent socialist must adopt the aims of feminism. 

I Compare the austere personal surroundings of the railway 
millionaire, Augustus P. Flint, in Winston Churchill's novel, 
Mr. Crewe's Career. 



MODERN SOCIALISM 



33 



All throughout human history men have exercised 
domination whenever they have had opportunity. 
In olden days the strong tyrannized over the weak 
and enslaved them ; in our own day the rich tyran- 
nize over the poor and half enslave them ; and so 
for countless ages in the past men have tyrannized 
over women. The liberating spirit, which abolished 
slavery in the last century and is out against the 
tyranny of wealth to-day, ought to be fighting for 
the full emancipation of woman. 

There is a strong natural affinity between the 
supporters of socialism and those of feminism, but 
no explicit alliance ; because, I suppose, people have 
not seen how necessary one is to the other. Most 
of us probably have felt in some indefinite way 
the theoretical inconsistency of declaiming against 
the injustice of the rich, while neglecting the still 
greater and more ancient injustice of man towards 
woman ; certainly most enlightened supporters of 
movements for the extension of male citizenship 
(J. S. Mill for example) have shown themselves 
generously disposed towards women's claims. But 
what is not generally understood is that no effective 
scheme of socialism can be brought into working 
without the full co-operation of women. And it is 
impossible for women to throw themselves heartily 
into any scheme, or to have the qualities which are 
necessary for efficient co-operation, unless they 
receive just treatment in the commonwealth. Why 
women are indispensable and what their functions 
will be I hope to explain in a later chapter. They 
will need high qualities both of intellect and moral 
devotion. These cannot be looked for in persons 
who stand in a semi-servile position, and labour for 

3 



34 



INTRODUCTION 



the common good without adequate remuneration 
from the common store. 

§ 5. Property and domination have been much regu- 
lated in the past ; socialism will only carry 
the regulation a stage further forward. 

There is no ground for the fear that the regulation 
of the acquisitive and dominative instincts which 
is proposed by sociahsm will prove impossible. They 
have been subjected to much regulation in the past, 
and all that socialists propose is to carry it yet a 
stage further. As soon as men begin to form any 
sort of society, they limit the instinct of acquisition 
by prohibiting theft. In the Middle Ages the laws 
and customs against accumulation of landed properties 
and engrossment of trade were most elaborate, and, 
though frequently evaded, were continually being 
renewed and modified till the industrial break-up 
at the Renascence. Socialism puts forward no 
proposal which is essentially new. Its limitative 
ordinances are rendered necessary by the greatly 
increased opportunities for acquisition which are 
afforded by modern industry and finance, while 
they are made possible by modern advances in 
social science. 

The instinct of domination has been restrained 
even more closely. The right to enslave has gone 
long ago ; the rights of the father over his children, 
and of the husband over his wife and her property 
are now greatly diminished ; the power of the 
employer over his workpeople is less than it was, 
though it is still very great, and may be exercised 
with great injustice without transgressing the law. 



MODERN SOCIALISM 35 



The employer has less power in our own country 
than in other countries which stand at a lower level 
of culture, and he will have less in the future than 
he has now — at least, the sort of power which may 
be abused ; for all good purposes the captain of 
industry will be stronger than even before. The 
socialist wishes to regulate still further the power 
of man over his fellow-men ; he wishes to limit the 
opportunities of abuse of power, while preserving 
and enhancing those elements of government which 
are truly valuable to the individual and to society 



PART I 
THE COMMONWEALTH 



CHAPTER III 



WEALTH 

§ I. Part I of the hook explains the organization of 
the community which will he needed to carry 
socialism into effect. 

Let us begin with a definition. We need a term to 
denote the general communal organization, which 
includes the specially political organization called 
the ' state.' I intend to use the term * common- 
wealth.' The commonwealth is the general organi- 
zation or body of institutions whereby we regulate 
matters of wealth and industry, family-life and 
religion, as well as political affairs. At present our 
commonwealth is organized in accordance with the 
principles of individualism. 

Individualism I have spoken of already. It is a 
very different thing in primitive or pre-industrial 
communities from what it is in our own thickly 
populated country. Where men live scattered in 
farms and cottages, each family must work for 
itself, and reward is usually proportional to work 
performed. The case is quite different in modern 
cities, where there is minute division of labour and 
each man co-operates in producing the total output 
of the community. There we often see a clear 
separation between work and reward : a man may 
do most excellent work ; but, unless he fights for 

39 



40 THE COMMONWEALTH 



himself, he will get an inadequate reward or perhaps 
none at all. This I call industrial individualism. 
We have got used to the system and have come to 
think that it is the only possible one ; in reality 
it is quite unsuited to a co-operative state of society. 
The socialist contends that the distribution of the 
goods produced by social co-operation should not 
be left to the result of a scramble, in which grasping 
and pushing men will always come out best ; but 
should be regulated by foresight and the best avail- 
able wisdom of the community. 

If we reform the distribution of wealth on socialist 
principles, we must also reform the commonwealth 
in other respects ; in the organization of industry, 
in government, in the family, and in the relations 
of the sexes, especially in their economic relations. 
Wealth is such a vital factor in human society that 
reforms cannot be made in respect of it without 
consequential changes in many other things. These 
I propose to indicate in other chapters of this Part. 
The Second Part will take up the main subject of 
the book, the effect of those reforms upon the 
character of the individual. 

^ 2. As being a primary condition of welfare, wealth 
should he well-regulated in respect of its pro- 
duction, distribution and consumption. 

Wealth is the first point which should be considered 
in any scheme of social reorganization. The welfare 
of the soul is dependent upon the welfare of the 
body ; we can, it is true, have health without virtue, 
but not, as a rule, virtue without health. The 
' health ' I am speaking of is not, of course, mere 



WEALTH 



41 



physical soundness, such as that of a hungry wolf ; 
but the fit bodily condition of a well-fed, well-clothed 
and well-sheltered civilized man. Now, to maintain 
himself in fitness a man must consume much ; in 
his physical aspect he is a system of energies which 
continually manifest themselves and are dissipated, 
and therefore continually need to be renewed. He 
renews or protects these energies by substances 
which have to be won from his environment . Wealth, 
in the main, is man's accumulated store of energy- 
generating substances and of appliances which help 
in the winning of such substances. For instance, 
a man may be rich because he has a store of corn, 
or of tools and other things which are useful in the 
raising of corn. There are other kinds of wealth, 
such as ornaments — jewels for example — and objects 
of culture, such as books ; but these are subsidiary. 
If a man has no wealth he cannot maintain his 
bodily energy and fitness ; and therefore he cannot 
have spiritual welfare or virtue. 

It follows then that, if a community as a whole 
is to be in fitness, all its arrangements in respect 
of wealth must be put upon a satisfactory footing. 
Let us consider them under the three headings of 
production, distribution and consumption. 

There should be an adequate production of wealth ; 
adequate, that is, for every citizen to have enough 
of the substances which go to generate his bodily 
energies, and enough also of other objects, such as 
ornaments, to satisf}^ his reasonable needs. And 
the production should be made under conditions 
which are not injurious to the producer. It might 
be that the production of wealth could be greatly 
increased by some invention which acts injuriously 



42 THE COMMONWEALTH 



upon the workmen ; but we could not approve of 
such an invention. This seems to apply to some 
recent devices which have been developed out of 
the * scientific management ' invented by the late 
Frederick W. Taylor, of the Bethlehem Steel Com- 
pany ; the ' moral and intellectual damage ' caused 
by them outweighs the gain. Physical damage we 
may see in almost any factory ; in most industries 
there is some particular process which is unhealthy 
for those who are engaged in it. A notorious example 
is the glazing of pottery by compositions containing 
lead. Such injurious processes must be eliminated 
or ameliorated, if possible. 

Now turn to distribution. The distribution of 
wealth among the citizens should be fair ; it should 
be in such proportions as conform to the current 
sentiment of justice. What kind of distribution 
this will prove to be, may be a matter of much 
debate ; but some kinds of distribution are certainly 
to be condemned : for example a distribution which 
gives much wealth to some citizens of no great 
merit, but a very poor supply to other citizens who 
are useful. And the distribution should not only 
be fair in quantity, it should be made by methods 
which do not injure the character of the citizens. 
Here we touch upon the great cause of complaint 
against the competitive system. To put the matter 
shortly, commercial competition degrades us morally 
and intellectually. I think this is really the deepest 
source of discontent with the existing constitution 
of society. 

Finally there should be in the commonwealth a 
right consumption of wealth, i.e. a consumption 
which conduces to a kind of human enjo^^ment of 



WEALTH 



43 



which we can approve. Wealth is produced to be 
consumed ; food to be eaten, clothes to be worn, 
ornaments to be displayed and admired. Wealth 
should not be saved and hoarded out of sight ; still 
less should it be wasted, that is, consumed without 
enjoyment. And the enjoyment which is gained 
must not be such as degrades those who enjoy, 
but should rather conduce to their moral and in- 
tellectual welfare. 

§ 3. In our present individualist state wealth is ill- 
distributed. 

The existing individualist system is open to grave 
objections in all these respects — in production, in 
distribution and in consumption. Its faults are 
most glaring in respect of distribution. Inequality 
of distribution is what socialists complain of most 
loudly ; but perhaps there is even deeper discontent 
with the moral evils of competition. 

It is notorious that the existing distribution of 
wealth is unequal. The researches of Mr. Rown- 
tree have shown that the average working-class 
family goes through a period of poverty and pri- 
vation when the children are young, and is stinted 
of food and other necessaries in a way which acts 
injuriously upon welfare ; similar inquiries have 
been made into the condition of the rural labourer 
with a similar result. If anyone defends this state 
of things, he must do so on the ground that such 
evils are inevitable ; he must argue that without 
partial starvation and the threat of worse the hand- 
workers will not work reasonably hard, or will not 
abstain from extravagant propagation. I do not 



44 



THE COmiONWEALTH 



think that the argument is vaHd ; but such elements 
of it as deserve attention will be discussed in a later 
chapter. 

Other classes on the contrary are over-supplied 
with wealth. Some of the men who are rich owe 
their wealth to their special ability ; they are able 
organizers or inventors, or craftsmen of special skill 
such as painters or surgeons. But most of the rich 
owe more to luck than to skill. Sometimes they 
are highly paid for services which are not really 
of special value ; often they are rich by inheritance 
and perform no service at all ; sometimes they 
have got rich by means which do disservice to the 
community, by robbing it under legalized forms 
or pandering to its vices. 

§ 4. The true principle to be observed in distribution 
is that the share of the citizen should be propor- 
tional to the public service which he renders. 

The true principle to be observed in the distri- 
bution of wealth is that of public service. It is 
neither possible nor desirable to apply the principle 
with exactitude, and to try to make a citizen's 
share of wealth strictly proportional to his services ; 
and indeed citizens who render very great services, 
such as literary geniuses and great commanders in 
war, usually do not wish to make merchandise of 
their talents. But a general proportion ought to 
be observed. The citizen who performs high services 
should receive in distribution upon a higher scale ; 
and he should receive in a form which relieves him 
from the worry and strain of competition. 

In some degree this principle is already in opera- 



i 

K 

WEALTH 45 

tion ; all government servants are paid thus. In 
the navy, for example, there are two broadly marked 
classes, officers and ratings ; the latter for the 
hand-work, the former for planning and command. 
In each class there are many subdivisions ; men 
receive more or less according to their length of 
service, devotion and ability. So also it is in the 
civil service. That the principle commends itself 
to our sense of justice is shown by the fact that 
there is no acute discontent against it ; and not, in 
the civil service at least, many glaring cases of 
merit overlooked and unrewarded. 

When a socialist state is established with functions 
much more extensive than our existing state, this 
must be the principle upon which services are re- 
warded and wealth distributed. I do not think that, 
even under a political system in which the hand- 
workers have their full share of power, there will 
be any outcry against assigning to the brain-working 
or directing classes pay upon a higher scale. Hard 
manual work is very conducive to health and happi- 
ness, but not to intellectual effort ; if brain-workers 
are to be efficient, they must have servants who 
will take off their hands the daily work which is 
necessary to life. And, in order to hire service, 
the brain- worker must be paid upon a higher scale. 

I doubt whether a socialistic system would make 
any great change in the economic position of our 
professional or salaried class. Some of these at 
present are paid too much ; which is because they 
have special skill, and bargain to get the highest 
terms they can for their services. Others are paid 
too little ; which is mainly because the profes- 
sions are overcrowded, a trouble which could easily 



46 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



be remedied by public regulation. The important 
changes would be made in the hand-working class 
which would be levelled up, and in the capitalist 
class which would be levelled down. 

The distribution of wealth ought not to be left 
to ' natural ' causes, in other words to the results 
of a scramble. There ought to be a public staff of 
statisticians and experts in standards of living. 
These men should estimate what total volume of 
goods there is available for distribution year by 
year. They should fix the amount that is needed 
to keep a working-class family in good comfort. As 
the main strength of a nation lies in its hand-workers, 
it should be the chief aim of the commonwealth 
upon its economic side to see that the hand-workers 
reach this approved standard. In emergencies the 
directing class may go short of the further share 
which is their proper due ; but the hand-workers 
should have their indispensable quantum. 

§5. We must apply reform to the causes through 
which men grow excessively rich, such as {a) 
our land system, (b) public debt. 

As to the capitalist class, it will be necessary to 
take steps to prevent them from possessing anything 
like their present monstrously exaggerated share of 
wealth.^ I doubt whether we can altogether prevent 
men from growing rich. So long as the community 
has within it elements of weakness and ignorance, 
so long must it be content to surrender an excessive 

^ The fortune of Mr. J. D. Rockefeller is now estimated at 

;^250,000,000. 



WEALTH 



47 



share of wealth to persons who are able to take 
advantage of it ; just as men in extremities, in famine 
or danger from enemies, must pay a heavy ransom 
to those who will help them. But much may cer- 
tainly be done to cure the fatal disease of opulence 
which now afflicts us. 

Let us consider some of the causes through which 
inequality of wealth arises. One of the most odious 
and vexatious is our system of land tenure, which 
gives the unearned increment of urban land to the 
ground-landlord. For many various reasons, of 
which equality in the distribution of wealth is only 
one, the site and immediate environs of a town 
should be the property of the town. Our land 
system has no justification whatever in any whole- 
some want or tendency of human nature. It is a 
heavy burden hanging round the neck of the com- 
munity which we have been too lazy or too selfish 
to cut away. A resolute effort would easily make 
an end of it. 

Another cause of inequality is public debt. Credit 
of course is necessary to commerce, as between 
individuals ; but the system of public credit is a 
very different thing, and may be applied to purposes 
which have no economic justification. A defence 
can be made for the public debt which is spent 
productively and for which definite assets can be 
shown, such as waterworks or tramways or houses ; 
but not for the debt which is spent unproductively. 
Long ago some persons lent money to the British 
government to carry on war, and the heirs of those 
persons are still receiving dividends on that ancient 
loan. The essence of the matter is that bygone 
statesmen pledged in advance the fruits of the 



48 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



labour of future generations to men whose descend- 
ants are still enjoying those fruits without exertion. 

Before w^e can have equitable distribution of 
wealth, public debt must somehow be extinguished. 
The extinction will be difficult, perhaps impossible, 
so long as wars continue ; for in such emergencies 
a nation will pledge its future for ever in its desperate 
efforts to defeat an enemy. And a country which 
has no credit (because it refuses to incur debt) must 
always be at a hopeless disadvantage in war. Perhaps 
therefore the final extinction of public debt cannot 
be hoped for in the immediate future. That however 
is no reason why we should not make a vigorous 
start with its reduction by a levy on capital or other 
means, as soon as we recognize that the existence 
of debt operates against equality of distribution. 

§ 6. (c) Inherita7ice. 

Both land and debts pass on from generation 
to generation by inheritance. By law a man's 
power over his property does not end with his 
life ; he is allowed to govern b}' testament the 
distribution of it after he has passed away. The 
principle has existed so long that men have come 
to look upon it as an unshakable law of nature ; 
they do not realize how artificial it is, how much a 
convention of civilized society. Our modern death- 
duties have infringed greatlj^ upon the principle : 
the state now deducts at each succession a substantial 
fraction of a large estate ; nor is there any reason, 
except expediency, why one fraction should be 
appointed rather than another. Probably in the 
future it will be through restriction of inheritance 



WEALTH 



49 



that the dispersal of great properties will be achieved. 
If for example a man dies possessed of £100,000, 
the state will confiscate much, say half, of it ; the 
rest may be allowed to descend in parcels, but not 
more than a moderate-sized parcel, say £5,000, to 
any single inheritor. 

The principle of controlling the descent of property 
should be applied to corporations also, which do not 
die. It is not expedient that men should be able by 
testamentary disposition to lock up property for 
ever in the hands of a corporation, such as a church, 
or in the hands of trustees, for purposes which may not 
always remain conducive to the public interest. The 
title-deeds of all corporations and bodies of trustees 
should be subject to review at suitable intervals. 

No doubt an outcry will be made that we should 
be invading natural rights by limiting bequest in 
these various ways. The fact is rather that we 
should be modifying a convention of highly civilized 
society. In primitive societies there is no power 
of bequest. Freedom of bequest has been in the 
past a valuable aid to progress ; but the time has 
come when it should be subjected to strict limitation. 

§ 7. (d) Capitalism. 

The usual socialistic demand in regard to capital 
is that it should belong, like land, to the community. 
The demand is just in the main, but a distinction 
must be made as regards the various kinds of capital. 
In its practical and operative form capital consists 
mainly in credit, but the credit is of course based 
upon concrete objects of human use. For the sake 
of clearness let me enumerate some of these objects : 

4 



50 



THE COmiOXWEALTH 



land improved so as to be fit for agriculture or pasture, 
buildings, roads, bridges and streets ; railways, 
canals and harbours ; ships ; mines and machinery ; 
live stock, crops, raw materials and consumable 
stores ; furniture, clothes and ornaments. This 
selection is enough to explain in what capital really 
consists. By the de\dces of finance all this hetero- 
geneous property is, so to speak, liquefied, and can 
be applied to maintaining labour which is engaged 
in creating new capital in any part of the world. 

We cannot usefully discuss questions relating to 
capital, unless we recognize the great differences 
between the various kinds of capital. Capital con- 
sisting of objects which are of intimate personal 
use, or which cannot be maintained in efficiency 
except by close personal super^dsion, is suitable to 
private ownership ; objects which are of general 
use and do not need close supervision are more 
suitable to public ownership. It is generally recog- 
nized that roads should be public, and not private 
or semi-private, as they were in the eighteenth 
century. Many people would say the sam.e of 
railways, canals and harbours. ]\Iine5 and machinery 
might be doubtful or di^dded, some public, some 
private. Household furniture and ornaments would 
certainly be private. The kind of capital which is 
held publicl}' is withdrawn once for all from being 
engrossed by private owners. But wherever capital 
remains private, there will always be a possibility 
that indi\ddual persons may accumulate riches and 
become capitalists. Against this e\il we shall have 
to contend with various socialistic measures, such 
as the limitation of inheritance, which will be sup- 
ported by the invaluable assistance of public opinion. 



WEALTH 



51 



§ 8, (e) Special industrial ability. Checks to the 
accumidation of wealth must he applied ivith 
caution. 

In addition to these ways of getting rich there 
is yet another, ver}' important and very difficult to 
control : the exercise of special industrial ability. 
The abihty may be manifested in relation to existing 
sources of wealth — in organization and management : 
or in discovering and exploiting new sources ; as when 
an inventor, such as the late Sir Henry Bessemer, 
discovers and exploits a process of steel manu- 
facture, or when a speculative builder ' develops ' 
a piece of urban land. There is no doubt that in 
all conditions of society, indi\ddualist or socialist, 
we shall need able and inventive men for the direction 
of industry. The question is whether we can pro- 
cure their services by payment of reasonable salaries, 
or whether we must continue to let them ransom 
us as they do to-day. 

Such a question cannot be answered without the 
test of experience. There will certainh' be in the 
future a great extension of collectivist trading ; 
but it will not cover the whole field of business, 
unless it shows the quahties of the successful entre- 
preneur. If collecti\ist undertakings are outclassed 
in skill and enterprise by private ventures, then the 
private adventurer will sur\ive, and we must submit 
to see so much inequality in the distribution of 
wealth as his existence may involve. 

My own belief, which I admit is mainly based on 
faith, is that business ability, indeed abihty of all 
kinds, will be sought out for the public service more 
keenly than it is at present and will be more s^^s- 



52 THE COMMONWEALTH 



tematically rewarded. The whole matter depends 
upon a change in the spirit of our governing class. 
When wealth is the chief qualification for a governor, 
government is unintelligent and clever men neglected. 
But when the main qualification for government is 
ability, things will be far otherwise. 

In checking the operation of the various causes 
whereby riches accumulate in single hands, we must 
remember that they correspond, most of them, to 
some natural tendency or instinct of human nature. 
We must apply our checks with caution, lest we 
upset the natural balance of human functions and 
do harm or provoke a mischievous reaction. The 
laws of inheritance, for example, correspond to the 
pride which a man takes in his property and to his 
care for his offspring. The cause which needs hand- 
ling most circumspectly is the rewarding of special 
industrial ability. We must at all costs have a 
good supply of energetic and original men. 

Such considerations will doubtless be used as an 
argument for laissez-faire, and for continuing to 
leave the distribution of wealth to settle itself. I 
think the better way is to try to remedy the present 
evils, while fully admitting the difficulties of the 
task. Statesmen should proceed gradually and with 
caution, and they should be mindful of what can 
be learnt from psychology and sociology. Hitherto 
they have not taken much notice of philosophic 
teaching ; though whether this is the fault of states- 
men or of the unpractical spirit in which most con- 
temporary philosophers pursue their inquiries may 
remain an open question. ^ 

^ Every statesman can learn much from books such as 
those of Mr. Graham Wallas, especially Human Nature in 



WEALTH 



53 



§ 9. Wealth cannot be distributed equally unless pro- 
duction is socialized. 

The most prominent questions of social reform are 
connected with the distribution of wealth ; but it 
is necessary to speak also about production. For 
one thing, it is evident that, if distribution is to be 
equalized, wealth must be socialistically produced. 
If, to take an example, soap is produced by private 
firms such as Lever Brothers, then it is impossible 
to prevent those who risk their capital and devote 
their brains to the enterprise from drawing large 
profits. We might by various devices deprive Lord 
Leverhulme of his money as fast as he makes it, 
and prevent him from transmitting masses of pro- 
perty to his descendants. But, even if successful, 
we should produce a feeling of injustice and should 
alienate public sympathy. The only satisfactory 
way of eliminating the capitalist producer is by 
superseding him. We must make more soap, better 
soap and cheaper soap by collectivist agency than 
can be produced under our present system. When 
this becomes manifest, private soap-makers will be 
glad to pass over their concerns to collectivist 
management. 

The goods which are most suitable for collectivist 
production are those which may be termed standard 
goods, i.e. goods of general use which are made by 
well-established and well-understood processes of 
manufacture. Those which are least suitable are 
objects of intimate use, such as clothes, ornaments 
and books, where everything depends upon personal 

Politics and The Great Society, and from Professor McDougairs 
Social Psychology. 



54 THE COMMONWEALTH 



peculiarities and tastes. In respect of these goods 
there will always be room for private production, 
and therefore some opportunity for the accumulation 
of wealth by the successful producer. 

§ 10. This will also conduce to a more abundant pro- 
duction of wealth. 

It is usually taken for granted that under our 
individualist system we have at least an abundant 
supply of wealth, though the methods of production 
and the distribution may be faulty. But this is 
not true. The amount of food, clothing and other 
goods consumed is not so high per capita as it ought 
to be. This means that the nation is under-supplied 
with wealth. Apart from minor causes, this is due 
to the inefficiency of our productive agencies ; the 
work of our 35,000,000 of English population is so 
feeble and so ill-arranged that we cannot rise above 
a low per capita rate of production. 

The obstacles to industrial efficiency would mostly 
be removed by the adoption of socialism. One of 
them is the multitude of drones and parasites, the 
endowed citizens who make no contribution to the 
public wealth, but live idly upon the labour of others. 
Another is the defective training of the workers, 
who have not been taught how to apply their labour 
to the best advantage. Great mischief is done by 
competition and absence of systematic organization : 
thousands of men are working hard, not to produce 
wealth, but to prevent others from producing ; and 
thousands of men are running hither and thither 
confusedly, accomplishing a small amount of work 
with a great deal of effort. If we compelled every- 



WEALTH 



55 



body to work, fitted them carefully for work by 
appropriate education, and arranged the work upon 
an intelligent plan, we should increase largely the 
per capita production of goods. ^ 

§ II. The socialist state will regulate consumption. 

A few words must be added about consumption,, 
which from the standpoint of happiness is the most 
important part of the whole matter ; for it is no 
use to produce wealth abundantly or to distribute 
it equitably, unless it is wisely consumed. The 
objection may be made that advice about consump- 
tion is superfluous and even impertinent ; since 
people will know well enough how to consume the 
goods, provided only that they have them to consume. 
But this is not so. It is true that our country is 
very difierent from some others, whose inhabitants 
do not know how to consume wealth ; such a country 
is Egypt, where the people since the war have had 
more money than they know what to do w^ith, and 
where the great need of the nation is to be taught 
how to consume. But even in England, and especially 
in those industrial districts where wages are high, 
there is much need for regulation and encouragement 
of consumption. 

What is needed is twofold ; on the one hand 
restraint, on the other hand expansion. Even now 
in our society much restraint is done by taxation 
and legislation. The taxes on tobacco and alcohol, 
for example, are not maintained merely for the 

^ The existing causes of industrial inefficiency are well 
analysed by Sir L. Chiozza Money in his Triumph of Nation- 
alization, chap. ii. 



56 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



sake of revenue ; they have a valuable function in 
diminishing the consumption of those articles. Sun- 
day Closing in Wales and ' Prohibition ' in America 
are well-known examples of legislative restraint. It 
is probable that, under socialism, state restrictions 
upon undesirable consumption will be greatly in- 
creased, either by pressure of public opinion or by 
definite statutory coercion. 

Another kind of restriction which is now recognized 
as reasonable is restriction of waste. This was very 
much in evidence during the war. We all felt then 
that waste of wealth, even wasting * our own,' was 
an attack upon national welfare ; men were not 
allowed even to use stale bread as ground-bait for 
fishing. And this is the right principle. The con- 
sumption of wealth should be left mainly to the 
discretion of the individual consumer ; but if the 
discretionary power is abused, an offence is com- 
mitted, and there ought to be a remedy. 

But the really effective changes of the future will 
be in expansion rather than restraint. Putting the 
matter shortly, we may say that the cultured tastes 
of the upper classes will be made to spread down- 
wards through society : the hand-workers will con- 
sume more things and better things than they do 
now ; they will have more varied food and better 
cooked, more and better clothes, bigger houses, 
better furniture, more books, more ornaments and 
in better taste. And they will have more leisure 
in which cultured desires can be gratified. 

And this change will be helped by public agency. 
A great part of the education of children is an 
education in consumption ; they learn to appreciate 
artistic and literary objects, and so wish to acquire 



WEALTH 



56 



them. Wliat is done by our present system of 
compulsory elementary education will doubtless be 
supplemented greatly in the future. It will only 
be necessary to extend in various directions the 
culture-diffusing agencies which are already in 
operation. 

§ 12. The socialist will he wealthier than the indi- 
vidualist comm iin ity. 

Let me sum up shortly the main results which 
may be expected from the adoption of socialism in 
regard to wealth. 

The socialist community should be much wealthier 
than the individualist ; the volume of goods produced 
should be much greater, and the amount consumed 
by each family much larger. The change will be 
greatest among the hand-workers, who will be much 
better off than they are now and will consume their 
shares in ways which cultivated people can under- 
stand and respect ; at present so many well-paid 
working-class families exemplify nothing but a 
sluttish profusion. 

At the top of the social scale there will be a great 
decrease of consumption : there will be no more 
racing-stables or vast conservatories, such as that 
which was recently scrapped and blown up with 
dynamite at Chatsworth ; no houses with ten 
servants, no footmen and perhaps no butlers. And 
with this shrinkage there will probably be a corre- 
sponding change in all the sentiments and standards 
of taste that are connected with wealth. 

The least change will probably be seen in the 
professional class, whose style of living and degree 



58 THE COMMONWEALTH 



of consumption will probably remain much as they 
are now. Two evils, however, will cease to afflict 
professional men. They will not be haunted by the 
fear of sinking into the abyss of poverty through 
dismissal or through pressure of competition. They 
will be in the position of the ordinary civil servant 
who knows that, so long as he behaves himself, his 
position is secure. And they will not be tormented 
by the sight of opulence. At present the professional 
man cowers before the mighty capitalists with their 
mansions, parks, game-preserves, motors and liveried 
servants ; his modest comfort is rebuked and ashamed 
before all that magnificence. He would not be any 
happier if he had those costly things ; but he thinks 
he would be, and the thought prevents him from 
enjoying to the full his really adequate and whole- 
some share of wealth. 



CHAPTER IV 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 

§ I. Industry under socialism will be non-capitalist. 
It will aim at producing an adequate and 
steady supply of goods. 

Suppose that the principles of the preceding chapter 
have been generally adopted, suppose that land has 
been taken out of private hands, that there is no 
public debt, that most of the accumulated wealth 
of the nation is publicly owned, and that the work 
of management is entrusted to salaried officials — 
how then will industry be organized ? What will 
be the status of our various industrial organizations, 
and what aims will they keep in view ? 

The most important organizations of industry 
under socialism will have, of course, the general 
negative character that they will be non-capitalist ; 
that is, they will not exist to produce dividends 
for their proprietors. The primary business of all 
civilized industry is to produce goods for the use 
of the community ; but this tends to be lost sight 
of when it is controlled by private owners. 

The aims of these non-capitalist organizations may 
be stated briefly as follows. They will endeavour 
to produce as much goods as the community needs. 
A capitalist on the other hand will produce only 
that amount of goods which he thinks will bring 

59 



60 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



him the highest percentage with the least trouble. 
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that he can 
make a net income of £i,ooo by producing i,ooo 
tons of goods, and can make only just the same 
income by producing 1,500 tons ; he will prefer the 
smaller production as involving less risk and trouble. 
Moreover, if he hears that another firm intends to 
establish works in competition with him, he will 
make efforts to prevent the works from being estab- 
lished, though his own products may be insufficient 
to supply completel}^ the public demand. In our 
present business system a great deal of the available 
energy is spent on fighting rivals. When capitahsm 
is well organized and capitalists quarrel, the fighting 
may develop into a * trade-war.' As the organiza- 
tion of capitalism advances, trade wars become more 
formidable. It is credibly asserted that great re- 
striction of production is due to the action of trusts 
and other forms of capitalistic combination. 

The production of goods under a socialist system 
would be not only more ample, but also more steady 
and accurately adjusted to the needs of the com- 
munity. At the first glance this may not seem to 
be of great importance ; but in reality much suffering 
and loss are caused by irregularity of production. 
It is the main cause of unemployment, which inflicts 
so much hardship upon our hand-workers. Much loss 
also is caused when seasons of glut alternate with 
seasons of scarcity ; with the glut there is a waste 
of goods, with scarcity there is the waste of missed 
opportunities of enjoyment. 

Men can never make production quite steady 
and accurately adjusted to demand, because of the 
irregularity of nature ; but much could be done in 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



61 



that way which is not done now. Under a socialist 
system a staff of statisticians would calculate the 
amounts which the productive agencies of the com- 
monwealth should turn out year by year. At present 
there is no such organized foresight ; there is no 
one with the power or the will to foresee. Sometimes 
the ill-informed and unorganized crowd of producers 
are animated by hope, each one expecting to get a 
larger share of business than his neighbour ; and 
so they produce in excess of the demand. Later, 
when their hopes are falsified, they restrict their 
output till scarcity comes on. By-and-by the bad 
times of stagnant business begin to pass away, and 
then the upward movement of the rhythm begins 
again. These destructive fluctuations of trade are 
aggravated by the sinister activity of speculators. 
It is the rise and fall of prices that gives the speculator 
his chance ; stability of prices, quite apart from 
collectivist ownership, would destroy him. And this 
perhaps is why some sections of the commercial 
world are so bitter against any public regulation of 
industry. 

§2, With good conditions of labour and regular 
employment for the workpeople. 

It will be definitely and expressly the business of 
the socialist commonwealth to study the welfare of 
its workpeople. There are at present not a few 
employers who make efforts in this direction out of 
philanthropy : but this kind of private action is 
spasmodic and ineffective. The fatal difficulty is 
that under our present system the expense of welfare- 
improvements falls upon the private employer, and 



62 THE COMMONWEALTH 



therefore handicaps him in competing with rival 
firms ; an employer who thinks too much about his 
workpeople is in danger of being driven out of business 
altogether. The whole matter is far too big and 
heavy for private hands. Perhaps the greatest 
difference in the future will be made by the con- 
tinuous and scientific study of welfare conditions 
under the control of a corps of experts trained in 
psychology and physiology. It is utterly impossible 
to get this work done privately. Under our present 
conditions of individualism there is no sufficient 
motive to undertake such a work, and no power 
to carry it through if undertaken. It must be 
done by observers who accumulate results year by 
year and have the solid backing of the common- 
wealth behind them. 

Under the heading of welfare we must include 
regulation of hours of labour. At present they are 
governed by merely commercial considerations, except 
so far as inordinately long hours are prohibited by 
the State. The result may be summed up in a well- 
known phrase of J. S. Mill : " It is questionable 
if all the mechanical inventions yet made have 
lightened the day's toil of any human being." Hence 
some kind-hearted but unpractical people have 
proposed that we should revert to hand-production, 
which may be less effective but is more agreeable 
to the worker. The remedy seems rather to lie in 
collectivist production. Machines increase a thousand- 
fold the efficiency of labour ; we must use them in 
order that our societ}^ may be wealthy. But there 
is no good reason why men should toil for long 
hours at machine-work in order that employers 
may grow rich. From the standpoint of the com- 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 63 



munity there are conflicting interests to be recon- 
ciled : on the one hand we need an ample supply 
of goods, say of boots ; on the other hand it is 
not expedient that the boot-operatives should work 
excessively long hours, otherwise they are injured in 
body and mind. It will be the business of public 
statisticians and w^elfare experts to arrange a satis- 
factory compromise, and to revise their arrange- 
ments from time to time as conditions change. 

It is incredible how workpeople may be oppressed 
as to hours of labour under an individualist system. 
Many years ago I remember talking to a London 
bus-driver late at night : he told me he had just 
finished a sixteen-hour day, and that this was usual 
in his trade. Such hours deprive a man of home-life 
throughout the week ; he can hardly see his children 
during their waking time. 

The steady production which will result from 
socialism will make employment more regular. Under 
an individualist system there must be always much 
unemployment, which is imperfectly mitigated by 
unemployment insurance. A small employer who 
works to meet a fluctuating and intermittent demand 
must employ men irregularly. He gets an order 
and takes men on to execute it ; when the order 
is finished he must pay them off again. The matter 
might be illustrated in detail from the building 
trade. In any single town there may be perhaps 
twenty master-builders ; each of these must have 
his ups and downs of business, when he alternately 
takes on and pays off men. If the building trade 
in the town were socialized, fluctuations of employ- 
ment would be greatly reduced. 

Apart from the general rise and fall of trade, 



64 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



employment is made irregular by the predominance 
of the power of the consumer ; he makes his wishes 
all-powerful by acting upon the competition of 
producers against each other. If a man wants a 
house in a hurry, he will easily find a builder eager 
to secure the contract, without any regard for the 
state of the labour-supply. Under socialism the 
state of the labour-supply will have its due con- 
sideration. If the regular staff of building workers 
is already well employed and the consumer has no 
good motive for his hurry, he will be told to wait 
his turn ; he will not be allowed to upset the regular 
employment of workmen for no satisfactory reason. 

§ 3. The commonwealth will accumulate capital, avoid- 
ing the present evils of waste and of over- 
saving. 

It is important that in a community there should 
be a due amount of saving, that is, a laying by of 
wealth in order to produce new wealth in the future ; 
and this should be done in due measure — not too 
much saving, nor yet too little. Owing to our 
individualism the public significance of thrift is not 
considered, nor the limits to which it ought to go. 
The individuals who save are not thinking of the 
community at all ; their motive is to protect them- 
selves against the unkind chances of a hard and 
selfish world. As the ordinary working-class or 
professional family is never overpaid, it hardly seems 
possible for them to save too much ; their economic 
position is so precarious that thrift seems to be 
entirely a virtue. But keen observers of moral 
tendencies must have noticed that, concurrently 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 65 



with the present diffusion of collectivist principles, 
the virtue of thrift is praised less heartily than it 
used to be. The civil servant, for example, is not 
expected to save ; we like to see him spend his 
surplus on education and culture, knowing that he 
wall have official provision for his old age. 

From the national point of view saving can easily 
be overdone. The community needs an ample 
supply of wealth-producing capital, which in its 
tangible form appears as railways, factories and 
such other things as were enumerated in the previous 
chapter. But it does not need more of these things 
than can be usefully employed ; it is foolish to build 
railways running into solitudes, or factories to make 
goods which no one wants. ^ Nor does a nation 
need unlimited foreign investments ; it needs large 
investments to guard against the danger of national 
scarcity or misfortune, especially investments in 
new countries such as our colonies, where there are 
great openings for capital. But foreign investment, 
like home investment, can be overdone. 

Under a socialist system there would be arrange- 
ments for deducting year by year suitable amounts 
from the national income for home and foreign 
investment, i.e. for setting up new agencies of 
production. The investments would be on such a 
scale as expert advice dictated, and be devoted to 
such enterprises as financial experts considered to 
be sound. Both these points are neglected in our 
present system. Together with a great deal of 
blind and harmful waste by some persons, there is 
a great deal of blind and harmful saving by others. 
The thrift which our forefathers thought to be so 

^ See J. A. Hobson, Problem of the Unemployed, chap. v. 

5 



66 THE COMMONWEALTH 



entirely excellent leads to the country becoming 
overstocked with accumulated goods, and so suffer- 
ing from recurrent periods of industrial stagnation. 
Moreover, a vast amount of capital is lost by bad 
finance — squandered on ' wild-cat ' schemes, devoured 
by the swindlers and sharks of commerce, filched 
away by the cunning manipulations of financiers. 
From such distresses socialism would deliver us. 

§ 4, Performance of services and production of goods 
will he done in the socialist state by various 
agencies ; e.g. hy the imperial government, by 
sub-national governments, by local authorities. 

Let us turn from the aims which will be kept in 
view by the economic organizations of socialism to 
the systems upon which men will be combined 
together therein. First we must note that socialist 
principles do not commit us to any single system, 
so long as the before-stated aims are attained. It 
seems probable that services will be performed and 
goods produced in different ways, and that several 
systems will be tried, varying according to the 
work to be done, the local conditions of material 
and the peculiarities of the population. 

The kind of socialistic action which is most con- 
spicuous with us, the undertaking of services by the 
imperial government, is perhaps the least satisfac- 
tory of all ; though it is certainly necessary for 
some services which are required equally over the 
whole extent of the community, postal services for 
example. The unsatisfactoriness is due to the vast 
size of the organization, where the individual feels 
himself almost lost and the element of human interest 
is greatly lacking. 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



67 



In the future some of the services which are now 
imperial, or national in the wider sense, will probably 
become sub-national or national in a narrower sense. 
If for example there comes into being a Scottish 
Parliament with civil servants subordinate to it, the 
Scottish authorities will doubtless take over many 
important services, such as education, transport, 
land-development, housing, fisheries and drink-regu- 
lation. All these, and perhaps some others, are 
public services which should be regulated by the 
Scotch in accordance with Scottish ideas and with 
regard to the special conditions obtaining in Scotland. 
And in such matters there ought to arise a healthy 
rivalry between the sub-nations of our United King- 
dom ; Scotland for example would certainly make 
special efforts to excel in education. 

Under socialism the activity of local authorities, 
such as town councils, county councils and district 
councils, will certainly be extended. Even now the 
services performed by these local bodies are mani- 
fold ; they deal with sanitation, care of the poor 
and sick, transport, water-supply, gas-supply and 
many other things. They have lately begun to 
take up in earnest the production of houses. In 
the future probably the whole business of working- 
class housing will be in public hands ; houses which 
are more elaborate and expensive may be left to 
private provision. The great change which is likely 
to take place in the future is that local bodies will 
not only perform services, but also distribute and 
manufacture goods. There is no reason, except the 
opposition of private tradesmen, why town councils 
should not supply bread, milk, meat, coal and other 
articles of general use, the handling of which is well 



68 THE COmONWEALTH 



understood. Nor is there any reason why towns 
which have a reputation for some particular article, 
as Leicester for hosiery or Northampton for boots, 
should not produce these articles and send them 
out stamped with the trade-mark of the town as a 
guarantee of excellence. And so with agricultural 
produce ; there is no reason why the city of Cork 
should not export butter, or Aberdeenshire ofhcialiy 
supply the south country with its excellent local beef. 

§ 5. By co-operative societies, by philanthropic trusts 
and by guilds of producers. 

The co-operative movement is not socialist in 
form, but is truly so in spirit ; at least, in those 
co-operative societies which avoid the snare of 
high prices and big dividends. Co-operative societies 
are bodies of consumers, more or less closely attached 
to a neighbourhood, who share among themselves 
the profits of the business of distribution, and are 
restricted in respect of the amount of capital which 
any single member can hold. Being for the most 
part composed of working men, they are humane 
and liberal employers. They seem to have solved 
the problem how to conduct business successfully 
by methods which elevate morally, rather than 
depress, those who participate in it. Acting through 
the Co-operative Wholesale Societies of England 
and Scotland, they are also manufacturers upon a 
large scale. Their operations increase year by year 
and seem to be capable of indefinite expansion. 

Another kind of economic organization which is 
collectivist in its tendency is that of societies or 
trusts which pay only a limited dividend and pursue 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 69 



their operations from some ulterior motive of philan- 
thropy or public benefit. There are for example 
various bodies which are interested in education, 
such as the Girls* Public Day School Trust ; there 
are also Public House Trusts, which aim at providing 
good popular houses of refreshment without the 
unpleasant features of the ordinary public-houses. 

A very important recent development is that of 
guilds of producers, such as guilds of builders to 
construct the houses which were needed so acutely in 
England after the termination of the war. They 
may be either national in their extent, as is advocated 
by Mr. Douglas Cole ; or may be local, e.g. the 
building workers of Oxford may form a guild 
which will do any work of the kind that is needed 
in the town. 

Societies of producers have not been very suc- 
cessful in the past, for reasons which are well-known 
to those who have studied the history of co-operative 
production. The main reason perhaps is that the 
management of a big business needs far more com- 
mercial ability than even a highly intelligent work- 
man can command. A man who has been brought 
up to hand-work thinks about hand-work, and is 
not at home with problems of management ; manage- 
ment, like other complicated affairs, can be done 
only by those who have thought about it for many 
years. Another reason for the past failure of co- 
operative production is that the direction of the 
enterprise falls naturally into the hands of the senior 
workmen, who are not very ready to adopt new 
processes. The methods of the society soon become 
antiquated, and it is outclassed by more progressive 
producers. It is not impossible however that these 



^0 THE COMMONWEALTH 



and other difficulties in the way of co-operative 
production may be overcome ; if so, there is no 
reason why productive co-operation should not take 
an important place among the future organizations 
of industry. 

The worst enemy of all collectivist effort and 
production is public apathy, and this is due to public 
ignorance. The guild system is still so recent that 
no one can judge confidently of its value ; but co- 
operative distribution is undoubtedly one of the 
most powerful influences for good in our industrial 
system ; and yet we hear very little about it. This 
is because co-operation is ignored by the newspapers, 
which are the most powerful agents in the country 
for spreading information. Newspapers of course 
live upon their advertisements ; and these are in- 
serted mainly by private traders, certainly not by 
co-operative societies. In fact, collectivism alto- 
gether, whether as co-operation or ^uild production 
or in any other form, is contrary to the newspaper 
interest. Newspapers altogether are fatally impli- 
cated with capitalism and individualism ; as Mr. 
Wells says somewhere, the news we read every 
morning is printed on the back of puff-advertisements 
of patent pills and sales of drapery. Every advance 
of collectivist agency narrows the field from which 
the dividends of newspaper proprietors are drawn. 
Hence the bitter and unscrupulous attacks of journal- 
ists upon socialist men and measures ; hence the 
need of a vigorous counter-propaganda in the interests 
of truth and social reform. ^ 

I The establishment of the New Statesman has done great 
service in spreading sociaHst ideas, especially among the 
younger generation. 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 71 



§ 6. The socialist state will always have some private 
industry. It will gain by its variety of economic 
organization, 

I think that a judicious advocate of socialism will 
recognize that the private adventurer is not likely 
to be superseded entirely. Many articles which we 
require — clothes to some extent, ornaments and 
literature — are satisfactory only when they are 
exactly suited to the user's taste, and therefore 
should be produced by those who can give the closest 
personal attention to the making. And the same is 
true of persons who render services, such as dentists 
and to some extent physicians. So there will always 
be little shops where clever workmen make boots 
to suit oddly shaped feet, and jewellers and gold- 
smiths, and studios where pictures are painted ; 
and there will be periodicals, no doubt, and authors 
and publishers with nothing socialistic about them. 

Nor is socialist management well adapted to new 
and hazardous enterprises where fresh sources of 
wealth have to be exploited with no assurance of 
safe returns. Public authorities are not well suited 
for discovering and working gold-mines in Brazil 
or for developing commercial aviation. What they 
ought to undertake is work the methods of which 
are well-understood, and where a good market is 
assured so long as the articles produced are of standard 
quality. There can be no objection to entrusting 
socialist bodies with the manufacture of bread and 
cheese, or with the production of coal, or with trans- 
port by road, rail or canal. And yet even there 
we should always allow for the possibility that 
improvements may be discovered, and should 



72 THE CO.ADIOX^VEALTH 



therefore tolerate some private adventurers who 
may introduce novelties at their own risk. 

Even in those departments of industry which are 
best understood there will probabh' still be some 
opening for managers or entrepreneurs of quite 
exceptional skill, who are not contented with the 
slow and sure advancement which the public service 
affords. There must always be a considerable amount 
of private capital in the country ; and this can be 
used to finance private ventures, which will have 
to justif\' themselves by exceptional efficiency. If 
this is so, there will still be inequality in salaries 
or profits and some accumulation of wealth. And 
then there will be need for constant measures to 
ensure that this wealth is distributed again and not 
piled up into hereditary fortunes. In taking such 
measures the statesmen of the futin-e will have to 
consider what course offers the least disadvantage. 
It will be desirable that the community should have 
the services of those specially talented men ; but 
perhaps they will not exercise their talents unless 
they are allowed to accumulate and bequeath their 
wealth. Then the statesmen will have to decide 
how much accumulation and inheritance can be 
tolerated without paying too dearh' for the special 
talents. 

It is one of the scares — a vain scare — of the enemies 
of socialism that it will involve a dead uniformit}' 
which will impoverish character and depress all 
enthusiasm. In regard to industry, at least, this 
should not be true. The industrial organization of 
the futtu'e will always be diversified by some admix- 
ture of individualism ; and even definitely collectivist 
S3'stems will show great variety of character. The 



ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 



73 



aims of socialism can be secured in various ways, 
and there will probably be many theorists and many 
warm advocates of the various systems. In these 
matters it is most desirable that experiment should 
have a free hand, so that men may learn what system 
works best. Probably there will be good points in 
every s^'Stem and none wall be perfect ; probably 
one W'Orker will be better suited by one system 
and another by another. Perhaps the various sys- 
tems will be advocated by preachers and waiters 
no less fer\dd than those who contend for articles 
of faith ; and there will be fanatics and missionaries 
of guilds and of co-operation and of semi-philanthropic 
trusts and of municipal agency. The multiplicity of 
systems w^ill doubtless lead to some overlapping 
and w^aste of effort. But it will produce a healthy 
rivalry and competition : not the cut -throat com- 
petition which makes men malignant and deceitful ; 
but the competition of gentlemen who have public 
spirit and are working in a public ser\dce, and feel 
a proper respect for the opponents against whom 
they are contending. 



/ 



CHAPTER V 

GOVERNMENT 

§ I. We shall always need government, and move than 
ever under socialism. 

The anarchists or nihilists who denounce all govern- 
ment as superfluous and mischievous seem to be 
wrong in their political philosophy. With the ad- 
vance of society we do not need less government, 
but more ; as our system grows more complex, 
men need more and more to be directed and trained 
for their work. Anarchists assume, I suppose, that 
men will improve so much in intellect and morals 
that each will understand for himself perfectly the 
system in which he is working, and will do with 
perfect fidelity the work which falls to him. But 
this is visionary ; certainly it will not come to pass 
at any period which we can look forward to and 
make provision for. 

Even if the vision does eventually come true, 
men will need a long preliminary period of training. 
Now this is mainly done by government. Govern- 
ment is, or should be, a system in which the best 
intellects devote themselves to laying down the 
methods upon which men must work in relation to 
the widest interests of the community. Govern- 
ment at present is the most powerful organized 
agency for good in our society ; even if we are to 

74 



GOVERNMENT 



75 



have less of it in the future, we must have more 
of it now. 

But more probably the dream of the anarchist 
is impossible for ever. Government rests upon a 
solid basis of primitive human instincts. All gre- 
garious animals need leaders ; men most of all, 
because their work is so intricate. And we have 
instincts correspondent to our need. We have an 
instinctive love of leadership — those of us who are 
qualified to lead ; and, on the other hand, we like 
to be led — at least, by those who are competent 
to lead us. Socialism will not abolish those instincts, 
but rather provide increasingly for their legitimate 
satisfaction. Nothing in the history of politics is 
plainer than the extension of public control which 
has come about in the course of our movement 
from the oligarchy and individualism of the eighteenth 
century towards the democracy and collectivism of 
the twentieth. This has consisted not merely in 
the passing of laws which enjoin or forbid, but 
in the construction of a system of institutions that 
need continual improvement and extension. The 
individualist, on the contrary, wants as little govern- 
ment as possible ; his ideal would be a government 
which merely * kept the ring ' for the combatants 
who fight for wealth, or merely stood on guard 
over property, like the policeman who watches the 
Gold Cup which the horses race for at Ascot. That 
was what the eighteenth century was like, all property 
and no government. 

We have much government now and may expect 
in the not-distant future to have much more. There 
will be a great growth in the elected political bodies 
and a great increase in the number of persons who 



76 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



are employed in the public services ; the power 
which they exercise will be much greater than the 
power of existing governments, and the system which 
they administer will be much more elaborate. I 
wish now to consider what changes in our political 
system all this will imply. 

§ 2. The government of the socialist state will continue 
to he democratic. 

One thing at least will continue unchanged, our 
democratic principle. We need not consider the 
various reasons for this ; it is enough to put forward 
that which is most relevant to the present issue. 
An elaborate system of government cannot be whole- 
some and effective unless there is a strong political 
interest diffused through all classes of the population 
Government should be subjected to a constant and 
intelligent criticism on the part of those for whose 
sake it exists, i.e. the governed ; and it can be 
effective only if the governed co-operate heartily 
in carrying out the directions of the governors. 
Unless the people are interested in the government 
under which they live, they can neither criticize 
nor co-operate. Democracy is, among other things, 
a device for stimulating political interest and for 
giving to the governed the power to make their 
views respected by the governors. 

The main condition of democratic government, 
a good measure of wealth and of education, exists 
in England already, and is likely to be strengthened 
in the future. Unless the people are well educated 
they cannot criticize ; and unless they have wealth 
they have no time for education or for anything else 



GOVERNMENT 



77 



but a struggle to keep alive. These considerations 
limit the introduction of democratic institutions into 
foreign countries. We must always ask, when such 
an introduction is proposed, whether the people are 
wealthy enough and intelligent enough to criticize 
effectively and to co-operate. 

In a country which is poor and ignorant, men have 
a choice of two evils : either to have little govern- 
ment; or to have a government which is elaborate 
but, in default of criticism and control, corrupt 
and tyrannous. England in the eighteenth century 
suffered from the former ; Russia during the past 
regime from the latter. I do not know which of 
the two evils is the worse ; but a country which 
is wealthy and intelligent ought to be exempt from 
both. As our nation grows in political ability we 
shall have more and more government, and at the 
same time more and more control over government. 
When a policy of laissez-faire is adopted, it will 
be upon a deliberate calculation of good and evil, 
not, as now, because men are too lazy or stupid or 
corrupt to interfere. 

§ 3. With an improved civil service. 

Under every form of constitution the main work 
of governing is done by the permanent officials. 
As there will be so much more government under 
socialism, there will have to be a great extension 
of the public services and an enhancement of their 
quality. In England the civil service, perhaps from 
the fact that it was so long recruited from the poor 
relations and hangers-on of the aristocratic class, 
is still regarded in some quarters as a sort of half- 



T8 THE COMMONWEALTH 



time and half-amateur affair. Recently, at any 
rate, it was not thought incompatible with efficiency 
that a highly placed civil servant should double 
his income by literature or journalism. In some 
public offices there is an easygoing style of work 
which would never be tolerated in private employ- 
ment or in the semi-private employment of higher 
education. 

The education of our civil servants is not such as 
to fit them for the work, nor are there prescribed 
courses of study for young members of the service 
which would increase their efficiency. Some of this 
is due to want of co-ordination between our educa- 
tional institutions and our government ; the high 
schools and universities are out of touch with the 
needs of the state, and the state has no means of 
determining the policy of the schools and universities. 
Some of it is due to the indifference of the chiefs 
of our civil service. The army has made provision 
for the further education of officers who wish to be 
specially efficient theoretically ; but there is nothing 
of the kind for the civil service. 

And there is another point in which the civil 
service might learn from the army. Military men 
are not allowed to be merely theoretical : a staff- 
officer does not put in all his time upon the staff ; 
he has to learn by practical experience how those 
men live who do the spade-work of regimental duty. 
Without some spade-work men lose the sense of 
reality ; they give orders from their desks without 
fully realizing what the execution of them will imply. 
In some armies there are arrangements by which 
staff-officers are sent away periodically for spells of 
regimental duty, so that the brains of the service 



GOVERNMENT 



79 



do not become doctrinaire. But there is nothing 
Hke this in the British civil service. For example, 
the cultured gentlemen who direct the postal service 
from their offices in London have never collected or 
delivered letters, nor managed a local post-office. It 
may seem revolting to our traditions of gentility that 
they should ever be called on to do so ; possibly the 
whole proposal may seem a waste of superior abilities 
upon menial duties. But the question is whether 
a spell of menial duty would not make them more 
efficient as directors. If that is so, arrangements 
should be made to bring them into contact with 
every grade of post-office work. 

The great flaw in our public services, both civil 
and combatant, is the want of arrangements for 
eliminating what are vulgarly called ' duds,' i.e. 
ineffective members. An entrance examination en- 
sures for a great part of the civil service that recruits 
should have a reasonable standard of industry ; 
but there is no system for maintaining a high level 
of efficiency during the period of employment. We 
still keep up the tradition that an official's office is 
a semi-freehold, from which he cannot be extruded 
except for grave delinquency. He holds it ad vitam 
aut culpam, and inefficiency is not reckoned as a 
culpa. The chiefs of the service shrink from 
strengthening the hands of authority, perhaps from 
mere apathy, perhaps from fear of undue political 
influence, perhaps from fear of entrusting heads 
of departments with power which may be used 
tyrannically. Various remedies might be suggested 
for this ; what is certain is that we can never have 
an efficient public service, and therefore no socialist 
commonwealth, till we have found a way to deal 



80 THE COMMONWEALTH 



with duds faithfully. I would suggest that matters 
of discipline and pronaotion should be in the hands 
of comnaittees rather than in those of single heads of 
departments, who are fully proved to be ineffective 
so far as discipline is concerned. On these committees 
various interests might be represented, such as the 
superior officials, the inferior officials, and that 
portion of the public which is specially served by 
the department in question. It is difficult to see 
what temptation such a committee would have to 
be over-lenient or over-severe in discipline. 

The whole organization of our civil service has 
grown up anyhow, without any comprehensive design ; 
it is still in large measure dominated by the traditions 
of private employment, though the two kinds of 
service are quite different. The private employer 
appoints by favour ; he gives his vacancies to his 
sons or the sons of his friends. Patronage is only 
an application of private-employment methods to 
public institutions ; and though this corrupt and 
inefficient method of recruiting has been largely 
superseded by competitive entrance, there is still 
too much patronage in the public service. The 
private employer makes no effort to educate his 
staff, either by theoretical instruction or by deliber- 
ately changing their work. He means to keep all 
the well-paid posts in the hands of his family ; ^ 
for the rest, he wishes that a man should stay where 
he is put and that a cashier or salesman should not 

I A friend of mine, an engineer formerly employed by an 
Indian railway company, was warned by the managing 
director not to expect high promotion. The director had, 
he said, relatives enough to fill all the well-paid posts under 
the company. 



GOVERNMENT 



81 



look outside the narrow sphere in which it is his 
destiny to remain. Nor does the private employer 
need contrivances to keep his staff efficient : if he 
thinks an employee inefficient or dislikes him for 
any cause, he just dismisses him ; an unpleasant 
business, but necessary for self-preservation. For 
the head of a public department the business is 
just as unpleasant, and there is no sufficient motive 
of self-interest to make him undertake it. 

^ 4. And an improved parliament. 

In respect of government, what publicly elected 
bodies do is to watch and control the work of perma- 
nent officials in the interests of the governed. Par- 
liament has the highest position in this respect ; 
below it, with a narrower range of duties, there stand 
various locally elected bodies. Under socialism all 
these bodies will differ not a little from those which 
we have now. Our present parliament is mainly 
composed of the rich ; of those who have inherited 
money, or those who have made it. This is inevitable 
in an individualist society. We are all scrambling 
to be rich — to climb on to the shoulders of our 
neighbours, as Maine said ; and he who climbs 
highest is respected and regarded as a leader, and 
therefore fit to be a public representative. When 
this sort of climbing has ceased, electors will look 
out for qualifications of a different kind. 

I think that the parliaments of the future will 
be abler than they are now ; they will contain more 
men who are specially interested in problems of 
government and have had special training in political 
theory. The English universities of the future will 



82 THE COMMONWEALTH 



do what they fail to do now, provide courses of study 
which prepare men expressly for political life. Men 
who look forward to such a career will take these 
courses, and their academic records will be scrutinized 
when they offer themselves for election, as they are 
now when they are candidates for the more intellectual 
branches of the civil service. At present, systematic 
thinking on politics is rather discouraged in public 
men ; but perhaps that is just as well in a state of 
society whose basis will not bear critical examination. 

We have already begun to put the work of our 
parliament upon a satisfactory footing by paying 
salaries to the members. At present the payment 
looks somewhat absurd in most cases, a trifling 
pittance to men who can very well do without it. 
But it has enabled some poorer men to come into 
parliament ; and, as time goes on, they will come 
in more freely. The present figure of course will 
have to be revised ; it should stand at the amount 
which an ordinary professional man can expect to 
earn. In the future most of the best intellects of 
the country will be in the public service in one way 
or another. On entering parliament they would be 
' seconded ' in their former duties, to use a military 
term ; they would receive as M.P.'s a salary not 
less than they had in the public service. At the 
termination of their work in parliament they would 
resume their old positions. 

§ 5. The principle of giving salaries to elected repre- 
sentatives will he extended to local elective 
bodies. 

In local government the great reform which is 
needed is to extend the principle of payment to local 



GOVERmENT 



83 



representative bodies. At present no one can take 
service on these bodies who is not a moneyed person, 
and therefore the interests of the hand-working classes 
are not properly represented. In the towns the 
councillors and aldermen are mostly tradesmen ; 
in particular, builders, who have an obvious interest 
in seeking for election : in the country districts 
they are country gentlemen or large farmers — not 
a very enlightened or progressive class. Under 
these conditions the country may think itself lucky 
if any progress whatever is made in matters of local 
government. 

The tradition of non-payment for such duties 
comes down to us from the time when local governing 
bodies were corrupt and obstructive rings which 
offered substantial spoils to those who could contrive 
to get into them. Gratuitous service is well enough 
so long as the duties are not serious, and so long as 
it makes no serious difference to the welfare of a 
district whether they are performed well or ill. 
When local government is the arduous and scientific 
business which it will become in the future, every- 
one will recognize that those who watch and control 
it should be paid for their work ; just as much, 
say, as the directors of a co-operative society. And 
at the same time arrangements will be made to 
ensure that the public gets regular and efficient 
service for its money. Payment of local governing 
bodies should be introduced as soon as possible ; 
the same good results may be expected from it as 
have attended the payment of members of parlia- 
ment. Working men will be enabled to take part 
in local government, and the work of socializing our 
commonwealth will be greatly accelerated. 



84 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



§ 6. When our constitution reaches equilibrium the 
party system will he obsolete. 

The whole constitution of representative bodies 
will be greatly modified, I think, by changes which 
will take place in regard to political parties. Our 
political system being in a state of transition from 
an individualist plutocracy to a socialist democracy, 
we have two political parties with widely divergent 
principles ; one wishing to go forward on that path, 
the other to hold back. A gradual rate of progress 
is maintained by the crude expedient of turning the 
progressives out of office from time to time and giving 
a spell of power to the reactionaries. But when 
the socialist state is established, the two-party 
system will be obsolete ; minor difficulties and 
questions of detail must always arise, but we shall 
have reached a general agreement upon main prin- 
ciples. In Switzerland things already approach the 
position of equilibrium ; ministers remain in office 
for many years, watched and checked, but not super- 
seded. And so I think it will be under socialism. 
This implies that politics will be less of a sport, and 
we shall have a less ' sporting ' type of politician. 
The typical politician will be a clever professional 
man, a physician or teacher or industrial manager, 
who has a taste for public life and gets himself 
elected to a parliamentary seat. If he is lucky and 
shows special ability, he will get office and probably 
remain there indefinitely. If office does not come 
to him, he would naturally after a few years go back 
to his profession. We shall not see, as we see now, 
parliament as a sort of rival amusement to horse- 
racing or speculating on the stock exchange — a 



GOVERNMENT 



85 



game for the rich and a spectacle for the people ; 
no more raging-and-tearing propaganda, rant and 
tub-thumping, party manoeuvres, victories and de- 
feats. But then perhaps, in a more civilized com- 
munity, such appeals to elementary passion will 
no longer be popular. 

§ 7. Government will he stronger than now, though less 
pompous. 

We may look forward therefore to a kind of govern- 
ment which is abler and more public-spirited than 
the present one, and more fully in harmony with 
the wishes of the community ; and we may be 
sure that it will be much stronger. Government 
then will order things and forbid things which no 
government at present can venture on, though men 
may admit that they are desirable. The fault of 
all despotisms and oligarchies is that they are weak ; 
or, perhaps we may say, weak for good, though 
powerful for evil. They presuppose poor qualities 
in the population ; it is only ignorant and servile 
folk that will endure to be governed in this way. 
Not much can be done with such people ; because 
they do not understand the regulations that are 
made for their good, nor are they willing to co-operate 
in carrying them. out. Every people has the governors 
that it deserves ; with inferior subjects the governing 
class will itself be short-sighted, slack, inefficient, 
and probably also corrupt and brutal. What can 
any despot do, except do harm ? He can only act 
through his subordinates. And where is he to find 
among his stock of governing men subordinates of 
honesty, intelligence and public spirit to carry out 



86 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



his good intentions ? And, even if he did find them, 
his demoralized and brutaHzed subjects would not 
understand him ; they would still seethe with dis- 
content and continually suspect him. The usual 
reward of the benevolent despot is assassination, as 
happened to Alexander II of Russia: 

What the despot and the oligarch lack in power 
they try to make up for in pomp. But there will 
not be much pomp in the state of the future ; a 
few spectacles, perhaps, to amuse the less intelligent 
citizens and the children. Plainly dressed and un- 
assuming men, living in simple houses and sprung 
from unpretentious families, will wield great and 
unquestioned authority. On the termination of their 
periods of office they will be thanked and moderately 
rewarded. When their public life is over they 
will subside quietly into the mass of professional 
citizens, as do to-day the presidents of the French 
Republic and of the United States. 



CHAPTER VI 



CHILDREN 

§ I. Individualism has a dysgenic influence : the 
upper classes are sterilized, the hand-workers 
suffer hardship in rearing families ; the poorest 
stocks multiply recklessly. 

All our aspirations, all our schemes and efforts 
for the improvement of our country must be in 
vain, unless we can ensure that a good supply of 
young life will come on continually to take the places 
of the elders as they pass away. Of all men's private 
interests, children are the worthiest and the most 
absorbing ; and the renewal of population should 
be the very earnest concern of the commonwealth. 
Riches, about which men wrangle and fight so 
fiercely, are empty and unreal compared with the 
interest of children. 

In most ways individualism has a dysgenic influ- 
ence and militates against a proper renewal of the 
population. This is to be expected from a condition 
of private war ; the spirit of war and the spirit of 
the family are sharply opposed. In the overpower- 
ing excitement of conflict the claims of the little 
ones are unheeded, and struggling men trample 
upon them. 

Among the highest classes of our population there 
is a lamentable sterility. Having by competitive 

87 



88 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



arts attained a secure financial position, the English 
upper middle-class family is obsessed by the fear 
that it may lose it. At the same time, these people 
do not like the idea of going on with business-life ; 
the struggle is so hard and ugly that they are glad 
to get out of it. The children of a successful business 
man tend towards the professions, such as the army 
and the church — careers of gentility, but far from 
lucrative. Then begins the process of sterilization. 
To avoid the monstrously heavy expenses of educa- 
tion and to transmit his property undiminished to 
the next generation, the professional man takes the 
precaution of limiting his family ; he rarely goes 
beyond three children, and often stops at one. Hence 
the cultured classes are continually dying out. In- 
dividualism exercises a negatively selective or ex- 
terminating influence upon the intellectual and 
refined elements of the community. 

In every station of life the man who sets about 
rearing a family incurs pecuniary risk and disad- 
vantage. We do it in response to an overmastering 
instinct ; but, as business men, we are fools for 
doing it. No professional man is paid any the 
better because he has a family to keep. But his 
difficulties are trifling compared with those of the 
classes below. The ordinary town workman is not 
paid at a rate which would enable him to rear com- 
fortably even a moderate-sized family. He does 
well enough as a single man, but when he is married 
and his children are still young, the household suffers 
hardship in respect of elementary necessities — food, 
clothes and house-room. The hardship injures the 
children in health, growth and general welfare. 
The best and most intelligent working people, who 



CHILDREN 



89 



are determined to escape these sufferings, take the 
same precautionary measure as the professional 
man. They produce one or two children, and so, 
in a generation or two, extinguish their race. 

Upon the lowest classes of the community economic 
pressure has a very different effect ; it stimulates 
them somehow to reckless propagation. How this 
is to be explained psychologically is uncertain. 
Probably the explanation is quite simple — mere 
passion ; when people have nothing else to think 
about, their minds are full of sex. But sometimes 
I think that what influences the lowest poor is a 
kind of conceit or egoism, an immense confidence 
in the excellence of their stock, a feeling that the 
world can never have too many of that kind. This 
race-confidence is quite natural to man ; it is valu- 
able in bearing up a father in the arduous task of 
rearing a family. In the professional classes it is 
overborne by economic anxiety ; among thoughtless 
people it operates without restriction. But, whatever 
the motive may be, there is no doubt about the 
outcome. Society is always dying at the top and 
being recruited from below ; and those who furnish 
most recruits are the poorest of the citizens — poorest 
in physique, intelligence and culture. No other 
cause perhaps has had so great an influence in re- 
tarding the progress of man. 

§ 2. Socialism will remedy these evils by relieving the 
professional class of economic anxiety. It will 
give maintenance-allowances for children, while 
checking large families. 

Socialism will certainly seek a remedy for these 
evils. It will relieve the professional man of his 



90 



THE CO:\DIONT\'EALTH 



nightmare of economic anxiety ; it will assure him 
a li\-ing wage with pension, and provide for his 
family in case of premature death. It will afford 
facilities for educating his children in theh own 
station. In Scotland higher education is cheap ; 
in England it is monstrously dear. But there is 
no good reason why, when elementary education is 
free, upper-class education should be purchasable 
only at a great price. The professional and directing 
classes are no less necessary to the community than 
the hand-working class, and public provision should 
be made for educating them. 

In every class that is useful to the commimitj- 
there should be public allowances for children. 
This follows logically when once the principle is 
established that a worker should be paid from the 
standpoint of the community, not from the standpoint 
of the private employer. A professional man does 
so much work for the community, say as a physician, 
and should be paid accordingly ; as a father of 
children he does so much more, and should be paid 
more. And so also with the hand-workers. It is 
most unjust to the indi\idual and most injurious 
to the commimity that a man should suffer because 
he imdertakes the duty of parentage. 

Concurrent with these measures of encotu'agement 
there must be measiu'es of repression ; it would not 
be safe to remove the present checks on population 
without establishing others. If children are to be 
maintained and educated at the public charge, the 
better stocks will relax some of their prudence and 
cease to d^^indle. As for the poorer stocks, is there 
not a danger, when the spectre of starvation is 
banished, that they will burst into a frenzy of propaga- 



CHILDREN 



91 



tion, so that we shall have our country swarming 
with cheap life, like some parts of India and China ? 

I think that in all classes there should be dis- 
couragement of very large families. The task of 
rearing children is so exacting that parents can 
do it well only when their families are moderate in 
size, not more than five children, or six at the most. 
In the case of many large families one finds that 
the father is thoroughly selfish and inconsiderate 
and his wife a poor exhausted drudge, worn out 
physically and morally by immoderate child-bearing. 
Under these conditions the children are * dragged 
up,' under-educated and coarsened by the hardships 
of their scrambling home. At present there are 
wealthy parents who bring up very large families 
passably well with the aid of servants. In the future 
there will not be so many servants ; parents will 
have to work personally for their children. 

We may not like restrictions upon the family, but 
they will be necessary to preserve the concord of 
society. Even now, many of the cases which are 
met in ordinary Charity Organization Society practice 
fill one with indignation — a father out of work for 
three months (and therefore probably a poor work- 
man), an invalid eldest daughter, four young children 
under ten years of age, and another expected shortly. 
What is to be done with people like this, with no 
more foresight or conscience than rabbits ? At 
present it does not seem necessary that such cases 
should be dealt with legally, because we think that 
most parents are restrained by the thought of the 
sufferings of the children. But if all children, wanted 
or unwanted, are to live in comfort, there will certainly 
be public indignation against improvident breeding. 



92 



THE COMMONWEALTH 



If the evil is not checked, it will be fatal to the 
common goodwill which is the foundation of socialism. 

Under socialism the needs of the community in 
respect of population will be watched and calculated, 
like other things. In every country there is an 
optimum density of population : in new countries. 
South Africa for example, each family would be 
better off if there were more people in the country ; 
the old lands of Europe are mostly overpopulated, 
so that a reduction of population would increase 
their prosperity. It will be the business of English 
statisticians to say what number of children are 
wanted year by year in England to renew the popu- 
lation in each class of workers, so as to secure the 
greatest prosperity for the nation. If their require- 
ments can be satisfied without public action, well 
and good. But, if overpopulation threatens us, I 
do not think that socialists will shrink through 
delicacy from regulating families, any more than 
they will shrink from legislation to stamp out venereal 
disease. 



§3. It will issue licences to marry and will inspect 
families. 

Some subsidiary ordinances will be needed for 
which public opinion even now is almost ripe. There 
must be a system of licences to marry. We cannot 
get children of good quality unless they are bred 
from good parentage, i.e. parents of suitable age, 
neither too young nor too old, without transmissible 
defect and of good physique. Some of these quali- 
fications may not be easy to ascertain in the present 
state of our scientific knowledge ; but most of them 



CHILDREN 



93 



are plain enough. There are some marriages which 
anyone can see are undesirable — marriages of lads 
under twenty and of girls under eighteen ; of old 
men over sixty ; of persons badly infected with 
tubercle or syphilis ; of persons markedly deficient 
in intelligence or moral qualities. These evil unions 
are legal now, and have no small influence in debasing 
the community. 

There will have to be inspection of families ; if 
allowances are assigned for the maintenance of 
children, there must be assurance that the money 
is properly spent. This of course is done now where 
pauper children are * boarded out ' with foster- 
parents ; but in ordinary families there is no check 
upon parents, save in gross cases of cruelty and 
neglect. In the lower quarters of our large cities a 
high percentage of the children attending the element- 
ary schools are in a condition which is officially 
described as * poor,' i.e. ill-nourished, dirty and with 
ragged clothing. At present nothing is done about 
them, because the rearing of children is legally a 
purely private affair. When it is recognized as 
being of public concern, administrative steps must 
be taken in respect of all children who are not up 
to a good standard of physical condition. 

§ 4. The regulation of population will he done hy 

women. 

And now to speak of the agency by which all this 
regulation is to be accomplished. It certainly cannot 
be done by men. They are quite incompetent to 
deal with the very intimate and delicate questions 
which the work will involve. Men are unfit to deal 



94 THE COMMONWEALTH 



with most of the problems of sexual morality. As 
Mr. H. G. Wells says somewhere in his worldly- 
wise way, we men are such humbugs ourselves that 
we cannot be trusted in this sort of thing ; most 
decent men in fact would avail themselves of any 
pretext to get excused. The proper persons to act 
are women. This must be evident too, if we consider 
that in all matters of reproduction, whether our aim 
is to stimulate or restrain, attention must be fixed 
mainly upon the female. There is not much to be 
done with the men, except to deprive them of oppor- 
tunity ; but much may be done with women in 
the way of training and exhortation. And women 
themselves alone are fit to do this. In the common- 
wealth of the future, if a wife is so weak, or so in- 
continent, or so overpowered by maternal instinct 
that she cannot be content with five children, the 
women who will form part of the governing class 
will find some means of dealing with her. And 
they will know how to deal also with the ' unmarried 
mother,' upon whom at present so much sympathy 
is expended. Men could do nothing in such cases ; 
they would be melted by the tears of the poor little 
unmarried mother, and grin covertly at the incon- 
tinence of the very fertile wife. Women alone have 
the knowledge which cannot be imposed upon, and 
the justice which is the truest mercy. 

This is one of the reasons why a socialist com- 
monwealth must have women who are well-educated 
and full of self-respect and dignity ; they will have 
to perform most important functions in framing 
ordinances to regulate population and in seeing that 
the ordinances are obeyed. Even now, when all the 
education and training of women is far below the 



CHILDREN 



95 



proper level, there are many who are competent to 
perform these high functions, as anyone may see 
by attending committee-meetings of the Charity 
Organization Society. My own experience of these 
committees is that the ladies, who do most of the 
business, are very sensible and just ; though their 
justice is not excessively tempered with mercy. 
Compared with them the men-members have mostly 
the air of weak sentimentalists. 

§ 5. Socialist regulation will improve the family. 

The main resistance to these proposals will come 
from the individualists who profess to make a stand 
for the inviolate sanctity of family life. Now, I 
should be the last person to deny that there is some- 
thing very sacred about the family ; it is perhaps 
the best of all human institutions, and, so far from 
being superseded, I think it will be more firmly 
established than ever under a socialist system. What 
socialists want is, not to abolish the family, but to 
improve it. The claim of individualists to be the 
champions of family life I regard as an impudent 
imposture ; if there were any truth in it, we should 
not see so many wretched children in our cities, 
where the stress of competition is felt most severely. 
Family life is happy and enjoyable only when there 
is food enough, and house-room enough for comfort. 
In England thousands of families live without any 
privacy or decent convenience in a single room ; 
under these conditions children can be nothing but 
a sore burden. Even in average working-class 
homes the mother suffers no little hardship ; and 
therefore many working wives take all sorts of 



96 THE COMMONWEALTH 



measures, legal and illegal, to avoid bearing children. ^ 
Individualism is the greatest enemy of the family. 
The slow depopulation of France, which is so terrible 
to French patriots, seems to be due to severity of 
industrial competition. France is very largely a 
land of only children. The regulations of socialism 
will have the effect of improving the family and 
of admitting a larger number of persons to enjoj^ 
family life. 

However excellent an institution the family in 
general may be, it may, like other institutions, be 
badly managed in particular cases. The paternal 
relation is very sacred, and no one would interfere 
with it so long as paternal duties are duly performed ; 
but there are many things which a father must not 
do to his children, and many things which he is 
bound to do for them. In case of certain grave de- 
linquencies, the law ordains that the relationship 
may be invaded by public authority, or may even be 
broken up altogether. But no one wants to touch 
the family, unless there is delinquency which is 
injurious to the community. And one of the de- 
linquencies of the future will be the production of 
an excessive number of children. 

Although in the future there will be a greater 
number of restrictions than now in respect of the 
family, there will probably be no increase in the 
number of legal prosecutions. In such matters 
public opinion has great power. When once these 
regulations are generally approved, and under a 
democratic government they can become lawful in 

I It has been reckoned that in Germany there is one 
" kiinsthche Fehlgeburt " to every four normal births. See 
Muckermann, ?7m das Leben der Ungeborenen. 



CHILDREN 



97 



no other way, the community will abide by them 
loyally. At the same time there are certain to be 
not a few gross and atavistic persons who will trans- 
gress, and have to be coerced ; otherwise their evil 
practice will corrupt and embitter the community. 

§ 6. There are naturally some anti-social influences in 
family life which need to he checked by public 
authority. 

Without the family a highly civilized society is 
impossible ; and yet there are some strong anti- 
social influences in it. They appear very plainl}^ 
under a system of individualism. Each family is 
to its members a little island of affection in a hard, 
indifferent world ; we find in it a warmth which 
we can get nowhere else. But this does not make 
us considerate towards other men's families, or 
do much to temper the severity of economic com- 
petition. Every householder has to stand at the 
door of his house defending it against the rivals who 
would break up his family life. In times of stress 
there is always an outburst of family selfishness: 
in war men begin to hoard gold ; in a blockade 
each housewife attempts to lay in large private 
stocks of food — conduct which would bring the 
state to ruin if not sharply checked. In ordinary 
life the commonest form which this spirit takes is 
the accumulation of wealth to * provide for ' the 
children ; the economic struggle is so cruel that 
parents wish to amass a fund which will lift their 
children out of it. At present this is an inevitable 
outcome of parental affection ; but it makes the 
equitable distribution of wealth impossible. 

7 



98 THE COMMONWEALTH 



Under any circumstances of society there must 
be something exclusive about the family. A family 
is not satisfactory to its members unless it can 
shut out strangers or admit them only at definite 
times and under circumstances of some formality. 
A home into which strangers can walk freely is not 
a home at all. Usually too a family has some degree 
of separate pride, and believes in the excellence of 
its breed and of its peculiar ways. In good forms 
this appears as anxiety to uphold the family honour ; 
in bad forms as family snobbishness. 

The population proposals which I have just been 
advocating would not injure the family in its legitimate 
property, its privacy or its pride. I have touched 
upon these matters only to show that the family, 
though very good, is not wholly good. It is not 
so sacred that we should shrink from eugenical 
regulations, if they are demanded by the highest 
interests of the community. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 

§ I. /w order that socialism may he workable, women 
must he put on an equality with men. 

The conclusion of the last chapter was that 
socialism cannot be worked as a practical system 
without the whole-hearted co-operation of women. 
If we take steps to ensure the equitable distribution 
of wealth, we are led on to the regulation of the family 
and of population generally ; and the main agents 
in this work must be women. Such important and 
responsible functions cannot be performed by women 
so long as there is any subjection or inferiority in their 
status. They must be raised to an equality with 
men, not only politically, but also in respect of their 
economic position. 

This is the immediately practical and special 
reason for raising the status of women ; there is 
another of a more general kind, which may seem to 
be more remote but is really even more important. 
Socialism is impossible unless there is diffused through- 
out society a high standard of virtue ; it will need 
all kinds of virtue, but more especially those which 
we see in persons who are both sympathetic and 
self-controlled. The citizens of a socialist state 
must have charity, humanity, continence, temperance 
and general moderation of character ; without 

99 



100 THE COMMONWEALTH 



these qualities it would be impossible to work so 
elaborate and delicate a system. Now these are the 
virtues which belong specially to women. They 
are wanting in societies where women's influence 
is weak, and prevalent in societies where women 
are strong. And, therefore, women must have 
much influence in the socialist community ; in 
fact, all the influence that they can legitimately 
claim. 

This means that the domination of man over 
women must cease. In respect of politics it has 
ceased, or nearly ceased, among us. It is time 
that it ceased in social and economic matters also, 
so that women may have full citizenship and stand 
in respect of all public rights on a footing of per- 
fect equality with men. Using the convenient 
terminology of Lester Ward, we may call the 
traditional system * androcracy,' in which man is 
dominant and woman subservient ; the proper 
system is a dyarchy, in which the two sexes have 
co-ordinate power. 

§ 2. The domination of men over women was 
necessary in early society, hut is necessary 
no longer. 

Androcracy is a curious fact in human society ; 
it is not like anything which is to be seen among 
animals. Many species of the higher animals, such 
as lions and others, have definite mates, and the male 
resents fiercely the intrusion of a rival ; but there 
is never the same sort of control and possession 
that man claims over woman. But we find this 
condition among men throughout ; even in the most 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 101 



primitive human marriage the control of the male 
spouse must have been much greater than among 
animals, because human jealousy is much more 
continuous and watchful. 

Jealousy is the foundation of marital domination, 
but control became stricter when men began to 
acquire property. The husband claimed the exclusive 
services of his wife in order to watch over his property, 
and finally came to treat her as an item of property. 
With the possession of property, moreover, there 
grows up a pride of social position ; and then, when 
rules of inheritance have been established, a pride 
of race. The house-father becomes anxious to 
protect the purity of his stock, and therefore tightens 
his control over his womankind. 

At present there is a strong and well justified 
reaction against masculine domination ; but we 
shall not understand the causes and cure of it till we 
recognize that it was a great step forward in human 
progress. We cannot have civilization without good 
family life ; and this demands a habit of reserve 
and self-restraint which savage women do not possess. 
The jealous domination exercised over women by 
men has bridged the interval which separates the 
stage of primitive licence from the stage at which 
women are able to exercise reserve from a perception 
of its intrinsic fitness. 

The views which a man holds about the emancipa- 
tion of women must depend upon whether he judges 
that they are now able to observe the rules which are 
necessary for the welfare of the family. If he doubts 
their ability, he will insist on the continual need of 
the chaperone. He will also be unwilling that 
women should have much control of property ; for 



102 THE COMMONWEALTH 



property means power, and those who have power 
and do not know how to use it become Hcentious. 
But if we are convinced that EngHshwomen are 
well able to exercise the necessary reserve, then 
there is no justification for maintaining a tight 
control over their actions. Women should be re- 
garded as fully responsible beings, able to judge for 
themselves, and fit to be trusted with that part 
of the welfare of the community which rests in their 
hands. As a consequence they should have their 
fair share in the property of the community ; for 
without property they lack the power which a full 
citizen ought to possess. 

§ 3. The chief means of giving equality to women is 
to pay them for their services as wives and 
mothers. 

In order to make an end of masculine domination, 
it is not enough to give women political equality ; 
that is mainly an instrument for obtaining economic 
justice. Nor is it enough to give ' equal pay for 
equal work ' ; for example, to pay clerk's wages 
to a clerkess. What women do outside the home 
is relatively inconsiderable ; they are useful chiefly 
as wives, mothers and housekeepers. Economic 
justice to women means payment for those distinctive 
services, and till they receive it their status in the 
community cannot be satisfactory. 

There can be no question as to the value of feminine 
services, especially those which are rendered as 
wives and mothers. Not merely are they essential 
to the material upkeep of our society ; they are, 
as one might easily prove, necessary to all the cul- 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 103 



ture and spiritual civilization which we enjoy. But 
yet these services are not remunerated by wages. 
Consider the position of an artisan family, say a 
carpenter and his wife. The man does certain 
services to the community and is paid wages. The 
woman also does services, but receives no wages ; 
in the eye of the law her services are rendered solely 
to the husband, who remunerates her as he thinks 
proper ; the share of wages which he hands over 
to her is fixed by his arbitrary will. 

As a matter of abstract justice this seems to me 
intolerable. And yet it is easy to see how it has 
arisen. According to primitive ancestral custom 
the wife was very much in the position of a chattel ; 
she was practically purchased by the husband from 
her father, as is still done among South African 
negroes. A native husband considers, very reason- 
ably, that he has a right to the services of his wife, 
because he has paid a price for her. There is no 
more question of paying wages to her than of paying 
wages to a slave. 

We no longer buy our wives, but we still consider 
that we are entitled to have their services free of 
charge. Many women feel this to be unjust, but 
can get no remedy because their services are not 
transferable ; we pay onl}^ for those services which 
can be taken from us. Hence the anomaly that 
a man pays much for the services of a domestic 
who is only moderately useful to him, but nothing 
for those of a wife who is invaluable. When a 
bachelor marries his housekeeper he obtains more 
service, but ceases to pay for it. 

The best part of the work which women do is 
concerned with reproduction ; it is inestimably 



104 THE COMMONWEALTH 



valuable, and, to be done well, requires high qualities 
of intellect and character. It is work which should 
be encouraged and rewarded ; but all this economic 
injustice discourages it. The injustice is greatest 
to women who have independent earning power. 
A well-educated and trained unmarried woman may 
be sure of getting a good income in ordinary industry ; 
but when she marries she finds herself reduced from 
independence to total dependence, with all its 
restrictions and humiliations. Among the moneyed 
class a woman may secure her position by means 
of ' settlements ' ; but not among the classes who 
live on salaries or wages. The wife of the hand- 
worker is also in a hard case, if she only realized 
it. When she is young and unmarried, her services 
are in good demand and adequately paid ; when 
she marries, she enters a sphere of work where there 
is no systematic provision for her. Her husband 
gets no higher wages than he had when he was single, 
and is expected to keep his new family somehow 
out of his superfluous pocket-money. Except among 
the highest class of workmen the working man's 
wife on marriage enters upon a life where she will 
suffer hardship, insufficient food, clothing and house- 
room, and have in addition the misery of seeing these 
evils fall upon her children. 

The inadequate recognition of reproductive services 
would have been remedied ere now, if our governors 
had not been accustomed to look at everything from 
the standpoint of the private employer. The indi- 
vidualist system does not encourage the employer 
to think of his workpeople as human beings ; he has 
climbed on to their shoulders as men climb on to 
beasts of burden. Some employers really care for their 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 105 



workpeople, and some few more pretend to do so. 
But most of them neither care nor pretend to care, 
as anyone may see by studying the Hfe of an industrial 
town. To the average employer the fact that his 

* hands ' have reproductive tendencies is a tiresome 
and unnecessary twist, which unfortunately cannot 
be eliminated, as we eliminate it from our domestic 
cats and horses. It would be more profitable for 
him if the workers were sexless beings whose industry 
is never troubled by passion, like the working-bees 
in a beehive. 

Payment for wifehood and motherhood may have 
a sound of novelty, but the main principle of it 
has already been recognized. Under the term of 

* allowances ' it is practically in operation in the 
army, and it was carried out with elaborateness 
and some liberality during the Great War. A point 
which is not yet recognized, though very important, 
is that such payments should not be made for the 
sake of the man, or as a matter of compassion to 
support his * encumbrances ' ; but should be made 
direct to the woman for her social services. There 
should be no element of compassion about the thing 
at all ; it should be a matter of right, provided always 
that the services are duly performed. 

§ 4. The payment would not he excessively burden- 
some, nor cause family discord, nor make 
marriage mercenary. 

Although the charge of these reforms would doubt- 
less be great, it would not be all additional to existing 
expenditure. Payment of standard rates of wages 
to men irrespective of their domestic condition is 



106 THE COMMONWEALTH 



extremely wasteful. Assume that the minimum 
wage, say of a farm labourer, is 50s. a week. This 
now is calculated on the assumption that he is married 
and has the usual number of children. But suppose 
he is not married, why should he still receive 50s. ? 
Let it be decided by competent authority what is 
the proper pay for such a man, and let him receive 
that ; when he marries and produces children, let 
the total income of the family be proportionately 
increased. 

That a wife should always have of right her separate 
income is fatal of course to the principle of andro- 
cracy. To my mind that is one of its main 
advantages ; but to some minds it may be con- 
demned thereby. People talk as though androcracy 
were necessary to family welfare. The official 
theory of the family is that it has a single head, 
the husband, of course, who is a despot, though 
possibly a benevolent despot, within the family 
circle ; unless he is ' master in his own house,' he 
can have no self-respect and the family no peace. 
Such is the androcratic theory, which has the support 
both of the patriarchal doctrine contained in the 
Old Testament and of the barbarous traditions of 
our Teutonic ancestors. But it is really wonderful 
that it should still be accepted as a theory of family 
government ; because, as every married Englishman 
knows, it is absurdly at variance with actual facts. 
The domestic position of the English wife to-day may 
be theoretically one of submission ; but practically 
it is one of authority, at least in decent families. 
A girl, who under the present unhappy conditions 
has to manoeuvre and cajole to get a husband, is 
all shyness and submission and delightful ignorance 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 107 



in her unmarried state. Once established in her 
new home, she very soon changes her tone and 
learns to use her power. The natural and whole- 
some condition in a family is that the husband is in 
command of such of the joint work of the family as 
lies outside the house — his trade or profession ; but 
that the wife is mistress inside. If a man is ' master 
in his own house/ that house is in a bad state, and 
cannot be a proper place for the upbringing of 
children. All this is seen clearly enough in the homes 
of good working-class people ; the wife reigns inside 
the house, and the husband often speaks of her as 
* boss ' or ' captain.* In actual practice then, at least 
in England, family government is not a despotism, 
but a dyarchy or partnership in which the partner? 
have each a definite sphere of authority. Economic 
justice to woman would simply confirm and regularize 
an arrangement which is commonly recognized as 
the best for the welfare of the home. As in other 
partnerships, harmony is secured, not by the autocracy 
of one partner, but by a reasonable delimitation of 
provinces, and the efficient performance of duty 
by each partner within his own province. 

Nor would such a system make marriage a mercen- 
ary affair. To every human relationship there is 
of necessity a financial side, which should not be 
disregarded ; those who pretend to disregard it 
are usually found to be more mercenary than usual, 
when once we penetrate the disguise. One can 
set out to preach a new religion or launch a system 
of philosophy in a glow of disinterested enthusiasm, 
with no prospect ahead but martyrdom or genteel 
starvation ; but you cannot expect a succession of 
teachers to go on with the work unless regular 



108 THE COMMONWEALTH 



provision is made for their subsistence. And so 
there will not be less married love but more, when 
wives have a lawfully secured economic position 
and take an honest rate of pay for doing honest 
work which the community needs. 

The injustice under which women suffer seems to 
me to be the greatest defect in our existing civilization, 
worse even than the injustice to hand- working men, 
though that is bad enough. The great merit of 
the recent admission of women to political rights 
is that it leads on to economic emancipation. Some 
able writers have contended that the establishment 
of woman's economic position should have had 
priority.! I venture to think otherwise. It was 
right that the political emancipation should come 
first, and it was sound judgment in the leaders of 
feminism that made them concentrate their efforts 
upon it. In working for any great change we should 
direct attention first upon those things which appeal 
to the imagination and open large vistas of service 
in the widest spheres. What was not generally 
recognized, and was perhaps not advisable to pro- 
claim too loudly in the heat of the political strife, 
was that the attainment by women of political justice 
would lead on to an agitation for economic justice. 
Did the politicians who gave votes to women think 
that women would cast their votes merely to put 
one set or other of male politicians into office ? No. 
Having got their votes, the women will use them ; 
and the main use will be to make sure that they 
are justly paid for their work. 

^ See Wilma Meikle, Towards a Sam Feminism. 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 109 



§ 5. Admission of women to the full status of citizejt- 
ship will promote the reform of morals by means 
of legislation. 

To get and to maintain these benefits women 
must take a full share in the management of the 
commonwealth. The political questions which will 
arise in a socialist state will be largely concerned 
with measures for the welfare of home-life, for the 
protection of women — their physical inferiority 
making protection necessary — and for the care and 
protection of children. It will be necessary to have 
political women, to represent the interests of the sex, 
just as we ought to have working-class politicians to 
represent the workman's point of view. What propor- 
tion of governing persons should be women it is not 
easy to say exactly ; possibly from a quarter to a 
third. This means about two hundred members 
of the House of Commons, and so proportionately 
in other bodies. This would probably be found 
sufficient. Women are less naturally suited to a 
political career than men ; nor does their domestic 
work and training lead on so easily to the public 
activities of the politician. But the government of 
the country will cease to be an androcracy, and will 
be cured of the faults which are inevitable in an 
androcratic community. 

The raising of the status of women, which I think 
is involved in socialism, will have a vast, indeed 
an incalculable, effect, both upon women themselves 
and upon society at large. Their present economic 
dependence brings with it a multitude of evil conse- 
quences ; it is bad for their self-respect, moral 
character and intelligence. It is the cause, more 



110 THE COMMONWEALTH 



than anything else, of what is called the ' Social Evil/ 
because it enables men who have money to purchase 
women who lack it ; it makes them weaker in yield- 
ing to every sort of temptation, especially those to 
which from their physical delicacy they are espe- 
cially prone ; it makes them content with defective 
education. 

When women have full opportunity for the develop- 
ment of their nature they will make a great difference 
to government ; even now, though their political 
influence is only beginning, the direction of the 
oncoming changes may be discerned. 

The legislation of the future will, I think, be 
directed more definitely than now to moral improve- 
ment. Some person — some foolish individualist — 
has said that you cannot make people moral by act 
of parliament ; some one else much wiser — it is 
Mr. Bernard Shaw, I think — has replied that you 
cannot m_ake them m,oral in any other way. He m.eans 
no doubt that, though a moral change in the com.- 
munity can be begun by exhortation and voluntary 
observance, it cannot be completed till it is ratified 
by law. Law gives definiteness and majesty to the 
unorganized expressions of public opinion. Now the 
existing laws, formulated under masculine domination, 
are very lenient to the characteristic masculine vices 
— the vices of wayward, gross and self-willed creatures. 
Perhaps the most conspicuous of them are drunkenness 
and sexual immorality ; they are closely connected, 
because the first usually leads on to the second. 
About drunkenness there has been a great change 
in public opinion. In the first half of last century, 
as we know from rollicking books like Pickwick and 
Charles Lever's novels, it was regarded as a genial, 



THE STATUS OF WOMEN 111 



almost a meritorious performance. Now it is less 
in favour, though many minds still think it 
humorous ; the drunken antics of a famous American 
cinema-actor are popular with most British audiences. 
But as women increase in power, I think we shall 
see less toleration of drunkenness and more readiness 
to proceed against it by legislation. In England 
most people think at present that we shall never 
come to * prohibition * ; but perhaps they under- 
estimate the suffering which the drunkenness of men 
inflicts upon women, and the determination of 
women to end the evil as soon as they have the 
power. 

Nor do I think that woman-governors will be 
tolerant towards sexual vice, especially that which 
is mercenary. Honest women hate and loathe the 
prostitute, not merely as a disgrace to the sex, but as 
a traitor or * blackleg ' of the basest kind. It would 
be difficult to take strong measures against the 
Social Evil now, because our wretched economic 
system makes it almost inevitable. But an equitable 
distribution of wealth would take away the main 
excuse ; and against those who still offend I think 
that women in the future will proceed with ruthless 
vigour. 

§ 6. And prevent violent revolution and war. 

In regard to political development, I think that 
the influence of women will contribute greatly to 
steadiness and gradualness of change. The masculine 
character is forward-pushing and impatient, the 
feminine character is traditional and steadfast ; the 
function of man is to augment, that of woman to 



112 THE COMMONWEALTH 



preserve, the inheritance of the race. If men cannot 
get just what they want, they resort to violent 
methods — strikes, vehement agitations, civil wars. 
Women dislike physical violence and get no glory by 
fighting, only suffering. The admission of women 
to co-ordinate power will be the greatest of revolu- 
tions, but it will probably be the last. The political 
changes of the future may be great in their aggregate, 
but in their stages they will be gradual and mild. 

Nor are they likely to be accompanied, as they 
are now, by wars between nations. At present we 
can hardly expect to see any great political change 
accomplished without violent convulsions, which let 
loose the ever-smouldering passions of race-antipathy. 
We cannot imagine events like the French and 
Russian revolutions unaccompanied by war. But 
when women have full political power, nations will 
be less ready to fly at each other's throats. There 
is less racial feeling between the women of two rival 
countries than there is between the men ; and there 
is still less between the men on one side and the women 
on the other ; as anyone may see by visiting the parts 
of Germany that are now in British and American 
occupation. Though there certainly are other causes 
of war, racial antipathy is the oldest and strongest. 
Racial antipathy will influence the conduct of nations 
less, when women have come to occupy their due 
position in the commonwealth. 



PART II 
CHARACTER 



8 



CHAPTER VIII 



FREE CITIZENSHIP 

§ I. Socialism will give to every member of the state 
the character of free citizenship, whereas at 
present our workpeople are partially enslaved. 

I COME now to the main topic of my book, the 
influence which the adoption of socialism will have 
on character. Character alone is ultimately valuable ; 
the elaborate system of institutions proposed in pre- 
ceding chapters has its main purpose in the im^prove- 
ment of character. Various special points of good 
character are treated in chapters which follow. 
At present I wish to speak of * free citizenship/ by 
which term I wish to indicate the general type 
of character which we may hope to see realized 
in the members of the socialist community. The 
free citizen is one who is competent to participate 
fully in a free civilized commonwealth and has 
the qualities which are developed by that parti- 
cipation. 

In England at the present day a large fraction 
of the population enjoy the privileges of free 
citizenship ; but there is a still larger fraction who 
are practically excluded, and are thereby injured 
in character. Such is the condition of the majority 
of working men in our large industrial cities. There 
is no necessity for this. These are men sprung 

115 



116 



CHARACTER 



from vigorous and manly stocks, with a full share 
of the elementary qualities which are the raw material 
of loyalty and patriotism ; they are of good natural 
intelligence, live within reach of newspapers, and 
have opportunities of discussion ; and they produce 
wealth enough to enable them to appreciate cultural 
interests, if only they could have for their own use 
the wealth which they produce. Their defective 
citizenship is due to faults of social organization 
which are remediable. Our working people are 
vastly better off than the slaves of Greece and Rome, 
who lived amid those magnificent civilizations with 
no more share in them than dogs and horses ; but 
they cannot take full advantage of the possibilities of 
civic life which modern progress has put within 
our reach. 

In regard to our working class there are two 
contrasted attitudes of mind which seem to me 
to be equally unprofitable ; one of contempt and 
neglect, the other of thoughtless idealization. The 
second is commoner at the present time. But if 
the working man is perfect, what need is there 
to trouble about progress ? You cannot improve 
on perfection. Surely the wise thing is to look 
facts in the face ; we can then take measures to 
remedy the evils which every sensible person recog- 
nizes as existing around us. The general position 
of the working man is that he is legally free, but 
is practically in a semi-servile position. By this I 
mean that, on the one hand, he is subjected to 
more domination from his superiors than is good 
for him ; while, on the other hand, he is excluded 
by his poverty and ignorance from full participation 
in the commonwealth.. Thus he fails to attain the 



FREE CITIZENSHIP 117 

character which is developed typically in the free 
citizen. 

§ 2. ^ condition of slavery is tmfavotirable to manliness, 
to the domestic virtues and to patriotism. 

We get nauch help in considering what character 
men should have as free citizens by considering 
the character which is developed when men are 
enslaved. The effects of full legal slavery are seen 
most clearly where there is no colour-bar or other 
natural distinction between master and slave. In 
the modern world there has been for the most part 
a colour-bar ; among the ancients there was none. 
Slaves upon the ancient monuments look like ordinary 
people, only more plainly dressed and perhaps with 
coarser features. It is in the slave-civilizations 
of Greece and Rome that we can study slavery 
in its purest form. 

The most vivid pictures of slave-holding society 
which we possess are contained in the comedies 
of Plautus and Terence. Their language is Latin ; 
but the material is Greek, though coloured by the 
playwrights' familiarity with Roman life. They 
are depressing to read, in spite of their wit and 
frivolity, because of the rottenness of the social 
conditions depicted in them ; but they are valuable 
documents for the sociologist, something like Zola's 
novels will be in the future for the student of 
nineteenth-century French society, only much more 
spontaneous and authentic. In these * comedies 
of manners ' we can study the vices which 
slavery produced both in the master and the 
slave. 



118 



CHARACTER 



We know well how the masters were injured by 
the slave system. 

On that hard pagan world disgust 

And secret loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 

Made human life a hell. 

The poet is all right about the vices, but has gone 
astray about the cause. The ancient world was 
hard and lustful, not because it was pagan, but 
because it was slave-holding ; its weariness went 
on deepening long after it had turned Christian. 
But the masters do not concern us just now ; we 
are speaking of the slaves. In explaining their 
vices the general principle to remember is that 
maltreatment injures a man in morals as much as 
in body. If you subject a race to the persecutions 
of religious bigotry, you produce a Shylock ; if you 
treat a dustman as composed of quite an alien 
clay, you must expect to find him such a person as 
Mr. Doolittle in Pygmalion. Davus, the typical 
slave of the Latin comedies, who lied and stole 
and cringed before his master, was only what his 
servitude had made him. 

Let us consider one by one the disabilities of the 
slave and the points of character in which he was 
wanting. He was excluded from all that side of 
life in which a man shows manly courage or mental 
initiative. He could never stand up boldly to his 
master, because he had no protection against him. 
His master could have him crucified for stealing a 
piece of cold fish ; an immoral mistress could have 
him flogged to death if he was not compliant to 
her wishes. He was not allowed to serve in the 



FREE CITIZENSHIP 119 



army as a fully qualified citizen-soldier ; if by any 
trick he did get into military service, no responsible 
position was open to him. In civil life he was never 
in a position of command, except as a foreman over 
other slaves. He could not have the chief direction 
of any industrial enterprise ; it was useless for him 
to put forward any invention or improvement in 
commerce. The career of civic ambition was, of 
course, totally closed to him. 

Perhaps the worst disabilities of the slave were 
those under which he suffered in respect of his 
domestic position. He had no property of his own 
except on sufferance. He was therefore greatly 
wanting in all the virtues connected with property ; 
he was hardly expected to be truthful or strictly 
honest ; he was wasteful of his master's goods, and 
shirked work as much as possible. He had no 
home of his own and no legalized marriage. Male 
and female slaves formed unions, of course ; but not 
such as the free citizen was bound to respect. They 
might be broken up at the will of the master, and 
the man sold to one purchaser and the woman to 
another. The slave was wanting therefore in all 
the qualities of morals and good taste which depend 
upon the possession of a secure domestic life, and 
upon the influence of women who respect themselves 
and are respected by the men with whom they live. 
Respect and self-respect are impossible for the female 
slave. 

A slave could have no loyalty or patriotism. 
Even if the city in which he worked were totally 
conquered and all the people sold by auction — the 
final catastrophe for an ancient community — he 
was no worse off ; he merely changed his master. 



120 



CHARACTER 



Nor had he any reason to rejoice in times of victory. 
What were the fortunes of the Roman Empire to 
a Roman slave ? What did conquest and glory 
matter to him ? 

The typical slave character, without manliness, 
without domestic virtues, without patriotism, is 
a warning and a dreadful example to us. The 
prevalence of slavish vices in the ancient world 
explains more than anything else, I think, the ruin 
of the ancient civilization. We must avoid any 
organization of society which tends to produce this 
type. Now, my complaint against individualism 
is that in some degree it does tend to produce slave 
vices. And we ought to replace it by a different 
kind of social organization which tends to produce 
the type which I have called the free citizen. 

Although we may say generally that our working 
people are in a condition of partial slavery, yet we 
must recognize that there are infinite gradations 
among the various classes of them. The * submerged 
tenth,' the Class A of Charles Booth's survey of 
London, are worse off than slaves. Their only 
advantage is that there is no legal impediment 
to their emerging into a better state ; and this 
privilege is not worth much, because they have been 
for the most part demoralized and spoilt beyond 
recovery by their way of life. The highest class 
of workmen are reasonably well off. Between these 
two extremes the various gradations lie. 

In all manly qualities our working class are im- 
measurably superior to the ancient slaves. But 
even they are compelled to be unwholesomely de- 
ferential to their superiors, far beyond what the 
necessities of discipline require. In regard to civil 



FREE CITIZENSHIP 121 



lite the hand-worker has a serious grievance in 
the difficulty of obtaining promotion ; everywhere 
privilege and private ownership block the way and 
prevent him from rising above a humble position. 
Another grievance, still more serious, is that he 
has no share in the management of industry ; and 
therefore cannot obtain good conditions of work 
or protect himself from oppression. In a recently 
published novel, written by a man who was once a 
working collier, one of the prominent characters 
is a colliery foreman, who dispensed rewards and 
punishments, not with reference to merit, but with 
reference to the favours which he received from 
the wives of the men under his command. Such 
treatment has a terrible influence in depressing 
men to the servile condition, and it would be impos- 
sible under socialism. 

On the domestic side the modern workman is 
much better off than the slave, because the humblest 
home is a private domain into which no stranger 
has the right to penetrate. But, on the other hand, 
the modern workman is not perfectly secure in his 
home, because his employment is uncertain ; so 
long at least as he works for a private employer. 
If a man can be ' sacked,' or otherwise thrown out 
of employment for no fault of his own, his home 
is not safe, and he suffers in respect of those personal 
qualities which are developed specially in the home. 

The qualities of loyalty and patriotism are difficult 
for men who have not the full opportunities of the 
free citizen ; the marvel is that our working people 
have so much of these qualities as they undoubtedly 
have. How unfavourable to the development of 
patriotic feeling are the conditions in such a district 



122 



CHARACTER 



of London as Bethnal Green ! The low standard 
of education prevalent among poor people prevents 
them from understanding the social system under 
which they live. In any case they have no cause 
to admire it. What admirable features does it 
present to them ? 

Oh, England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and 
high; 

But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I. 

They feel no pride in the fact that their employers 
have beautiful homes in Belgrave Square. What 
they see around them are the squalid streets in which 
they live and in which their children will grow up. 
Nor are they philosophers enough to be consoled 
by the reflection that it is the great beneficent law 
of the survival of the fittest which has pushed them 
into the slums and keeps them there. The pale 
dispirited weaver in Spitalfields — what reason has 
he to think : * I am an English citizen ; my country 
is the greatest achievement of human intelligence 
and virtue ; and I am a worker in it — not an important 
one, perhaps, but loyal and zealous in my place ' ? No 
wonder that most of the intelligent workmen who 
live in these bad surroundings are in a state of 
acute discontent, angry with their superiors and 
with the whole social system. Men can see the 
good side of things only when the world treats them 
at least moderately well. We are loyal to persons 
who are good and lead us successfully, and to a 
system which is wisely planned and beneficent. 
Such grounds of loyalty and patriotism are wanting 
to those who dwell in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. 



FREE CITIZENSHIP 123 



§ 3. The . characteristic quality of the free citizen is 
self-respect. 

There is a quality which is the outcome of the total 
position in which the free citizen finds himself, and 
which is characteristic of the free citizen — so character- 
istic that it can be used as a test to make sure if a 
man has attained to free citizenship ; I mean the 
quality of self-respect. Without self-respect a man 
may be legally free, but actually he is no better 
than a slave ; while without free citizenship there 
can be no self-respect in the best and fullest sense 
of the term. 

Self-respect is a social virtue ; it is the feeling 
which a man enjoys when he belongs to a good 
society and takes a not unimportant part in the 
work of it. It cannot be displayed by one who 
lives a solitary life ; we find very little of it among 
savages and social outcasts. A certain degree of 
self-respect comes to a man from participation in 
a narrow society — a family, a school, a club ; if 
he takes a leading part and has authority among 
the members of the society, then he feels self-respect. 
But his self-respect cannot be complete unless he 
is a fully qualified member of the greatest and most 
dignified of human organizations, the state. And 
the better the state, the more pride a man feels 
in belonging to it. 

Unhappily, our present commonwealth is organized 
in such a way that it is hard for many of our citizens 
to have self-respect. They live in physical conditions 
so mean and dismal that the superior classes pity 
them; the associations in which they work — the 
firms or other industrial systems—are not dignified. 



124 



CHARACTER 



because private and selfish ; they have no effective 
share in the government of the commonwealth, 
because they are too poor and uneducated to take 
an interest in it and to understand its problems. 

The reforms of the socialist are advocated in the 
conviction that a better condition of things is possible, 
and that the quality of self-respect can be widely 
diffused. We find it well developed among our 
directing class ; and we may believe that the citizens 
of the hand-working class can have it also. A wide 
diffusion of self-respect would be advantageous for 
the citizens personally, and for the various organiza- 
tions of the commonwealth to which they belong. 
For a man does public service well and faithfully 
only when he believes that his work is valuable 
and is appreciated, and when he regards with affection 
and honour the system in which he is co-operating. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 

§ I. Under socialism there will he a call for manly 
qualities, especially those of command. 

We may feel sure that no ideal state will be acceptable 
to the English which does not call for the display 
of manly qualities and open out a stirring career 
to men with the capacity of command. Perhaps it 
is the fear that life under socialism will be too tame 
which explains some of the anti-socialist feeling 
among our governing classes. I believe that the 
fear has no foundation ; that socialist principles 
will not interfere with manliness, and that governing 
ability will be needed in the commonwealth of the 
future even more than it is to-day. What is still 
more important, the opportunity of exercising quali- 
ties of action will be extended much more widely 
throughout the community. 

It is possible to explain the mistaken notion that 
a socialist system will not call for the services of 
active and masterful characters. In the past the 
preachers and heralds of socialism have been a kind 
of men very different from those who will eventually 
govern us. They were mostly, we must frankly 
admit, unpractical sentimentalists ; men whose 
sensitive souls were revolted by the crimes and 
injustices around them, whose imagination was 



126 



CHAEACTER 



fired by visions of a happier future— men of feeling, 
like Rousseau and Saint-Simon. Now, far be it from 
me to depreciate the sentimental genius ; he has 
his own most valuable function, to awaken the 
conscience of mankind. But he is not a man of 
action, he could never ' run ' any kind of coUectivist 
institution. Poor Rousseau, " apostle of affliction,'' 
with all his overwhelming eloquence " could not 
even manage a couple of small boys to whom he was 
private tutor. The practical leaders of the future 
will not have too much sentiment about them : they 
will be very like the individualist leaders of the 
present day ; but better, because they will be working 
under a better system. 

The main psychological motive which induces 
men to seek a leading position in active life will 
always be the same, the pleasure in leadership which 
is felt by those who are competent to lead. Ever 
since the remote ancestors of man reached the human 
level, and perhaps even earlier, they needed leaders 
for their enterprises of hunting and for whatever 
works they undertook in common. And so there 
are men who are born for command and love the 
exercise of their faculty, like Bishop Blougram : 

There's power in me and will to dominate 
Which I must exercise; they hurt me else. 
In many ways I need mankind's respect, 
Obedience and the love that's born of fear. 
Thus am I made, thus Hfe is best for me. 

In its due place the love of power is as necessary and 
salutary as any other of our natural passions. In 
the past, unfortunately, it has not been kept in place. 
Some rulers have exercised excessive domination ; 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 127 



on the other hand, some incompetent persons have 
been allowed to rule ; while rule has been denied to 
persons who have had ruling faculties, but have 
been compelled to remain in a subordinate position. 

Regarded as public functionaries, the chief complaint 
which has to be made against the rulers in our 
individualist system is that they are weak. The most 
individualist of rulers, the tyrant, is very weak, 
at least when there is good to be done ; and he lives 
in continual fear and suspicion. His show of omnipo- 
tence is a sham and a delusion. As a previous 
chapter has explained, there will be much more 
government under socialism than there is now. 
And therefore we shall need more governors, possess- 
ing more and better qualities of command. The 
* men of blood and iron ' in our present system are 
mostly idols with feet of clay ; the governors of 
the future will be firmly based on righteousness. 

§ 2. And there will be due opportunities for ambition. 

*' Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition 
poor broken old Wolsey might pardonably make 
that speech, but it is not true wisdom. Wherever 
in a community there are leading positions and wide 
scope for the qualities of command, young men 
aspire and have ambitious dreams ; a young man 
without ambition is fit only for subordinate tasks. 
There ought to be in every nation large numbers 
of young men full of inward forces which urge them 
upwards, and eager to assume responsibility. If 
ambition is disappointed or finds its way barred by 
privilege, there arises discontent which is dangerous 
for the community and injurious to the individual. 



128 



CHARACTER 



It may result in bloody revolution or bomb-throwing, 
or merely in the personal misery of the able men 
who are repressed. There are different sorts of 
privilege ; that of the old regime in France was 
mainly one of birth, that of modern England rests 
on wealth. 

At present there is a hard and ugly element in 
ambition from which it would be purified in a better 
social state. Many things combine to repress the 
poor ambitious man. Just because he is poor, 
most of the rich tend to dislike him ; for he is trying 
to take the place of some rich young man of inferior 
ability. In fact, each one of our numerous social 
strata is in a tacit conspiracy to repress the stratum 
below it. The poor ambitious man finds himself 
indeed in a difficult position ; he must alwa5'S be 
pushing forward, and yet must not be too blatantly 
obtrusive, or he will fail that way. It is this sort 
of thing that hardens a man. 

And it tends to make him unscrupulous also ; 
in an undeveloped society his path is very dirty. 
Ambition is a horrible business when advancement 
lies through royal favour ; which was what poor 
Wolsey was thinking of. At the present day men 
* get on in the world ' mainly by securing admittance 
to some influential circle. In Trial by Jury the 
judge relates how as a young barrister he got his 
first briefs by " falling in love with a rich attorney's 
elderly ugly daughter " whom he afterwards threw 
over. All we can say of this is that paying court 
to an attorney's daughter is better than paying 
court to princes. 

Under socialism it will not be necessary to use 
these arts. It is not necessary to use them now in 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 129 



such parts of our system of employment as have 
already been socialized. Where entrance to our 
public services is by open competition, there is no 
exercise of patronage at entrance ; and patronage 
is discouraged in subsequent promotion. When a 
scientific system of government has been established, 
a careful estimate will be made of the number of 
governing young men who are needed year by year ; 
they will be invited to present themselves, and their 
qualifications carefully examined, both in intellect 
and morals. One of the points which will count 
against a candidate will be that character of hard 
unscrupulousness which at present is so valuable 
a help to preferment. 

§ 3. For emulation. 

Many good socialists have a horror of emulation 
or competition in any form. I remember poor 
Charles Buxton, whose early death was such a loss 
to the world, speaking to me with great distaste 
of a fellowship examination at All Souls in which he 
had been a candidate. I suppose that what set 
his mind against it was the evils of industrial com- 
petition. But this seems to me a confusion of thought. 
There are kinds of competition which are not bad, 
especially that between young people to see who 
can do best. The motive which prompts men to 
compete against each other I propose to call emula- 
tion. There always must be and ought to be 
emulation between active and ambitious young men. 

The instinct of emulation is very powerful among 
the best and most vigorous races. Schoolmasters 
know the value of it for inciting boys to learn, 

9 



130 



CHARACTER 



though care must be taken not to let everything 
become subordinate to ' mark-grubbing.' On the 
playing-fields it is more valuable still, because 
the games are prized by the players largely as a 
means to competitive distinction ; especially the 
best of them, those which are played by teams. 
Weakness in the instinct is a mark of racial inferiority. 
Professor McDougall found it sadly lacking among 
the boys of certain coast-tribes of Borneo. ' What 
interest is there,* they said, ' in kicking a ball over 
a bar, or in ascertaining whether one fellow can 
jump further than another ? ' Much of our English 
education consists in training the emulative instinct. 
It would be bad for the future of our nation if our 
boys became like those un war like Borneans. 

I cannot see that there would be any lack of 
emulation under socialism. There would not be 
less in athletics at our places of education ; and 
certainty much more in things of intellect, because 
the whole tone of society would be more favourable 
to intelligence. Among the ambitious 3^oung people 
who are nearing the end of their education and are 
entering upon careers there would be enormously 
more emulation than there is now, because so many 
more careers would be open freely to men of talent. 

After men have entered upon the main business 
of their lives, the value of emulation greatty declines ; 
it is a sort of vanity which is more useful in the period 
of youth. In maturer years it should be supplanted 
by the zeal of public service, which is impossible 
for young people who are not yet serving. Still, 
the instinct of emulation does not altogether die 
away. All kinds of honorary distinctions appeal 
to it — titles, orders, precedences, votes of thanks, 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 



131 



medals, ' mentions/ decorations.. There are some 
men who do not care for these things ; but most men 
do. From the government's point of view they are a 
cheap and easy way of rewarding service and stimu- 
lating endeavour, and there is no reason why a sociaHst 
system should not retain them. Some of our present 
titles of distinction are very antiquated : There's 
no damned nonsense about merit with the Garter." 
We cannot imagine the Order of the Garter con- 
tinuing to exist under socialism, if it is to have no 
connection with social service. 



§ 4. For the display of courage. 

Courage is a quality which is indispensable to 
manliness ; I do not think there will be less of it or 
less occasion for it under socialism than there is 
now, though it will probably be of a less combative 
and aggressive character. The raw material of 
civilized courage, so to speak, is that fierce expression 
of anger which many wild beasts possess in a more 
eminent degree than man. Man naturally is not 
a specially courageous creature ; he is not infuriated 
by wounds and pain like most of the larger 
carnivora, but is rather cowed by them. His 
courage is largely artificial, the outcome of motives 
more or less civilized, of moral causes and 
of training. Some races have more of the raw 
material than others. Our own is very well endowed 
with it ; it is a deep-seated ancestral quality and is 
not likely to change, whatever our political constitu- 
tion may be. But the moral causes which will 
make men brave under socialism will be superior 
to those which have had influence hitherto, 



132 



CHARACTER 



At different epochs different motives have induced 
men to face the unpleasant experience of serious 
danger. Among savages it is mostly eagerness for 
plunder, for tribal distinction, and for the excitement 
of adventure. At a higher level of culture there 
appears the desire of winning royal favour, which 
an ambitious and warlike king always bestows upon 
his bravest warriors. In modern armies there is 
nothing of the plunder motive : love of adventure 
is confined mainly to the forces operating in barbarous 
countries : the desire for distinction has weight ; 
but modern armies are so vast and the fighting so 
deadly, that it must be a mere chance if any particular 
soldier attains distinction. The chief motives which 
make modern troops face danger are discipline and 
patriotic devotion. 

A notion is current that socialists are an undis= 
ciplined and unpatriotic crowd. As to the first 
point, I have already said that I think that discipline 
will be much firmer under socialism. The miscon- 
ceptions respecting patriotism are due to the pacifism 
of some socialists during the recent war. This, 
however, was due to temporary causes. The social- 
ists who refused to serve alleged that the existing 
political system was bad, and that the war was 
really a quarrel between rival gangs of capitalists. 
They would have fought well enough in another 
cause, as the Bolshevists have fought in defence 
of a communistic Russia. If there still continue to 
be wars, which is doubtful, the soldiers of socialism 
will not be less courageous than those of individualist 
states, and their training will not be less scientific. 

But the main opportunities for display of courage 
are not in war, but in the ordinary business of life ; 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 133 



especially that in which men have to deal with 
dangerous forces and situations, such, for example, 
as occur continually in the life of a seaman or an 
aviator. The demand for courage seems likely to 
increase as we make progress in mechanical invention. 
As it is only a part of the population that gets this 
practical training, the others have to be trained 
in courage by deliberate contrivance. This is 
done most admirably among our upper classes by 
means of rough and slightly dangerous games, such 
as football. A socialistic system would extend 
this training to all classes of the community ; 
would provide playing-fields for every grade of school, 
and suitable instructors for the children. 

There is no reason to fear, then, that a socialist 
community will be inferior in physical courage ; 
while in moral courage I think it will be greatly 
superior. Moral courage is readiness to face black 
looks and to do unpleasant things for duty's sake. 
Men are willing to do these things now for private 
gain ; but they are very loth to do them for the 
public service, and that is why there is so much 
slackness in the official world. When the state is 
a bigger and better thing than it is now, and our 
consciousness of it is more acute, there will be less 
easygoing treatment of public delinquency. 

§ 5. And for foreign adventure. 

The English character is deeply influenced by the 
existence of our oversea empire with its wide and 
various opportunities for a career of adventure. All 
over Europe there are plenty of adventurous young 
men ; but those countries which have no colonies 



134 



CHARACTER 



must submit to see their emigrants go to alien lands 
and lose their nationality. If socialism really im- 
plied abandonment of empire, there would certainly 
be a great restriction upon the outlook of our youth. 

So far as regards what may be called our settle- 
ment colonies, socialism would do nothing to loosen 
the ties of union to the mother-country, but much 
to strengthen them. Just as the friendships of 
good men are stronger than those of bad, so alliances 
are stronger between good states. In regard to 
those colonies or possessions, such as India, where 
British settlement is impossible, we must admit 
that socialists regard our domination as something 
temporary ; it is contrary to socialist principles 
that one race should hold another in permanent 
subjection. But it is plain that some of the nations 
under our rule cannot be expected to manage their 
own affairs for many years to come. A condition 
of tutelage is necessary while the slow process goes 
on of raising personal character to such a level that 
they can act as freemen. 

But this work of training wdll not be the whole 
of the career of foreign governance which will be open 
to Englishmen. The basis of our predominance is 
simply the personal superiority of the Englishman 
to the men of the subject races, a superiority which 
is mainly moral. Some of our superiority is due to 
education, and can therefore be acquired ; but much 
is due to climate and race and cannot be acquired. It 
may be that the heat and damp of certain tropical 
countries render it impossible for men who are 
permanently resident there to attain the quality 
of the best Europeans. If so, there may be, even 
when those countries have more self-determination 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 



135 



than now, a constant demand for the governing 
capacities of the British. All this actually happens in 
China, where there is a demand for British civil 
servants, solely on the ground of their superiority 
in certain points to native Chinese. 

So far as the oversea influence of our nation depends 
on moral causes, it is likely to be enhanced by socialism. 
The education and traditions of our professional 
class already produce a very fine type, both in 
physique and character. But I think it will be 
improved considerably when better institutions have 
lifted the whole nation on to a higher moral plane. 
The white man's burden is not likely to fall from 
him, so long as he increases in ability to bear it. 

§ 6. Arrangements will he made to give men a varied 
experience of life. 

The desire for new experience, for seeing new 
scenes and trying new forms of activity, is character- 
istic of men as contrasted with women, and of ad- 
venturous men as contrasted with those who are 
content with the familiar sphere of home. It is 
strongest, as we know well, in young men ; but 
some keep it all through their lives. It may issue 
in a futile restlessness and waywardness : but, 
in its due measure, it is necessary to the welfare of 
the race and the development of the individual ; 
nothing helps a man to richness of personality and 
to good judgment so much as wide acquaintance 
with different sorts of men and different ways of 
life. At present this demand for varied experience 
can be gratified pretty well by those who live in 
new countries where the demand for workers is 



136 



CHARACTER 



greater than the supply ; but it is repressed in the 
old countries where enaployers have the upper hand 
and use it to hold their subordinates down. 

Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 

And drudge under some foolish master's ken. 

Who rates us if we peer outside our pen. 

One of the most unhappy features of work under 
our individualist system is its monotony for most 
of the workers. From the standpoint of the private 
employer, the duties of most of his subordinates 
cannot be too limited and mechanical. Let the 
cobbler stick to his last, the bank-clerk to entering 
and casting, the schoolmaster to his yearly grind 
of grammar. Let all change and relief be reserved 
for the rich. Unfortunately, even the rich do not 
benefit much by their freedom, because their 
change is from one form of idleness to another, not 
a change of work which is really profitable. 

Great are the merits of change of work ; some 
day, when society is carefully organized for virtue 
and happiness, provision will be made for getting 
it. Let those who love to continue in their grooves 
continue there by all means ; but let those who wish 
to enjoy the full richness of life have opportunities 
of new experience. A man who is penned in to do 
one thing for ever cannot explore thoroughly the 
social sj^stem in which he lives. Even in those 
parts of our system which are already socialized 
the vicious traditions of individualism still fetter 
us ; otherwise, surely, provision would have been 
made long ago for change of work. Why should not 
a man who has been, say, a librarian for two years, 
not be a soldier for the next two, and then a tax- 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 137 



collector, and then, perhaps, take his turn at working 
in a dockyard ? I doubt if the work would suffer 
as a whole ; what is lost in practice would be gained 
in freshness. And the worker would gain infinitely 
in the realization of his personality. 

§ 7. If suitable measures are taken, there will he due 
openings for men of practical originality. 

Every able and spirited man desires to introduce 
improvements into the system in which he works ; 
and, if he cannot do so, feels painfully thwarted 
and depressed. We must count this a quality, and 
not the least valuable quality, of the man of action. 
There is a fear in some minds that it will not have 
sufficient scope for exercise under socialism. 

But, if socialism is to be successful, it must encour- 
age the man who is gifted with practical originality. 
It is not enough that we should have governors 
who can grasp and apply traditional principles in 
a traditional way. We must have arrangements 
which will give opportunity to men with ideas which 
are widely at variance with the existing system. 
These men are indispensable to progress. They 
are of the same type as the shipbuilder in Mr. 
Arnold Bennett's Milestones, who insisted on building 
with iron in place of wood against the bitter opposi= 
tion of his partners. He succeeded, made a fortune 
and ruined his commercial rivals. But this rough 
method of getting elbow-room for originality will 
not be possible under socialism. 

Our individualist system is supposed to be favour- 
able to original men ; and in some striking cases, 
perhaps, it is ; but on the whole it is extremely 



138 



CHARACTER 



hostile. When a new process of manufacture is 
put forward the immediate interest of manufacturers 
is against adopting it. When Bessemer, for example, 
invented his revolutionary steel-making process, 
none of the firms in the trade would take it up, and 
he was compelled, though not a capitalist, to scrape 
money together somehow to start furnaces of his 
own. We are accustomed to think of those manu- 
facturers as foolish, short-sighted men. But really 
they seem to have understood their own interest 
well enough ; they were making good profits by 
the old process, and saw no reason to incur risk in 
a new one. The fact that the new process would 
produce great benefits to the community later 
on had of course no relevance for them. 

It is not easy to put forward a cut-and-dried 
plan for doing justice to originality, because there is 
so little experience for our guidance. What will 
have to be done in the future will be to provide a 
regular organization for receiving new suggestions 
and testing them ; something like the Inventions 
Board for the fighting services in the recent war. 
Such boards should be established for every part 
of the public service — transport, education, medical 
service and so forth — wherever invention is possible. 
And some expense and risk must be incurred regularly 
in giving inventions a practical trial. This has not 
been done hitherto ; because our public organizations 
are built upon the model of private organizations, 
which will only take up an invention under the 
threat of being ruined by competition. But it will 
have to be done in the future, if we mean to escape 
the dangers of stagnation. The other alternative 
will be to tolerate in the country a considerable 



THE LIFE OF ACTION 



189 



amount of private enterprise in which inventive men 
can produce novelties at their own risk, and so either 
lose their money or make fortunes. And then later 
on the fortunes will have to be dispersed, or left 
to spread corruption throughout the community. 



CHAPTER X 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 

§ I. The public affections, such as patriotism , are 
earlier than the private, and are necessary to 
national welfare. 

The extremely domestic character of English life 
and the individualist traditions which are enshrined 
in our literature tend to make us forget that private 
affections, those of family and home, are of later 
development in the history of mankind than the 
public affections which are directed to objects out- 
side the family circle. Such, however, is the teach- 
ing of anthropology. Private affections are more 
precious ; but public affections are older. Among 
the lowest savages family life hardly exists, nor 
have they anything which can be called a home. 
And yet they always live together in associations 
for mutual help and defence, in packs or tribes 
or clans. They have therefore an instinctive senti- 
ment which binds them together. Even the Aus- 
tralian blackfellow, homeless rover as he is, has a 
public spirit which makes him interested in his tribe 
and solicitous for its welfare. 

The classic examples of civilizations in which 
public affections flourished are the city-states of 
the ancient world. In their private affections they 
were inferior to us, as we can see plainly from the 

140 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 141 



tone of their sexual morality ; but in their public 
affections they were much superior, which is what 
makes a classical education so ' fortifying.' The 
citizens of ancient Athens, for example, those who 
stood within the too narrow circle of citizenship, 
felt most deeply the value of their position as fully 
participant members of the commonwealth ; they 
were proud of their city and full of zeal for its glory, 
and were therefore ready to serve it without expecting 
private gain. Many good results flowed from this ; 
among others, excellence in art and literature, an 
excellence which declined as soon as the city's political 
position changed for the worse. One of the chief 
moral problems of our time is to recover some of 
the vigour of the ancient public spirit in forms 
suitable to the circumstances of the modern world. 



§ 2. The basis of patriotism is instinctive, but it also 
implies a rational admiration for one's country. 

The worthiest and most widely recognized of the 
public affections is patriotism. As with so many 
of the chief motive principles of our nature, it has 
elements which have been drawn from various levels 
of development. In part it is merely instinctive; 
it has its origin in primitive feelings such as those 
which cause a wolf to feel attachment to his pack. 
But that alone does not deserve the name of patriotism, 
any more than crude sexual passion deserves the 
name of love. It must contain a higher and more 
rational element, and this I take to be admiration 
for the system of society to which the agent belongs : 
he must believe it to be a noble thing, as did the 
ancient Athenians ; he must regard it as claiming 



142 



CHARACTER 



his unselfish devotion. Wanting this a man may 
have sentiments which show a fiHation to that primi- 
tive wolf-pack feeling and may falsely claim a higher 
name, but can easily be distinguished from true 
patriotism. It is the prevalence of such counter- 
feits that has given currency to Dr. Johnson's phrase 
that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. 

One of the counterfeits is racialism. There is 
in primitive man a wolf-like tendency to hate his 
neighbours outside the pack. We see it very strong 
in most tribes living under natural conditions, 
especially tribes of hunters, such as the Australian 
black men and the Red Indians. It is inevitable 
among these savages, but very odious in modern 
life, where races are so mixed in blood and so neces- 
sary to each other's welfare. Unprincipled men are 
always working to inflame racial hostility in order 
to prosecute their own selfish schemes, and a thought- 
less public is often ready to applaud them. 

Another bad principle, though not quite so base, 
is the lower sort of imperialism ; by which I mean 
the love of domineering over other races out of pure 
' swank ' and insolent pride. There was a great 
deal of this in the ancient world, especially in Rome ; 
and not a little, I fear, in our own national history. 
It is bad but not altogether bad, because it does 
undoubtedly produce a hard, fierce, hawk-like vigour 
of character. 

§ 3. There will he more patriotism in the socialist state 
than there is now. 

If true patriotism really implies an admiration 
for the institutions of one's country, we must marvel 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 143 



that there is so much of it in England to-day. Unless 
he belongs to the professional class, which is already 
in great part socialized, a thoughtful man must 
feel it an effort to be genuinely patriotic ; he must 
always be forcing himself to look towards the future 
and away from the present. An ordinary youth, 
in whom the motive force of primitive instincts is 
strong, can be worked upon very easily : " Lives 
there a man with soul so dead ? " — he responds quickly 
enough to all that. But later comes reflection. After 
a time he begins to ask : ' What is there really in 
my native country which should make me love it and 
sacrifice myself for it ? ' Suppose this question to 
be put to us by a workman of Sheffield or the East 
End. How shall we answer him ? * Fight for your 
slum, my lad ; fight for your employer's park and 
his town-house in the West End.' That is practically 
what patriotic war-appeals mean to him. As soon 
as a man in this position begins to think, he must 
hate the social system which has reduced him to 
his wretched state ; he sees it as a mixture of humbiig 
and oppression. 

Nor does society present a more admirable ap- 
pearance to profiteering capitalists. To one sort, the 
speculative financier, society is like an inert mass 
of fat, out of which he can tear pieces for himself, 
as a shark might tear blubber from a dead whale ; 
to another sort, the advertising manufacturer, the 
public are a flock of simple beings who have to be 
attracted by allurements artfully adapted to their 
simplicity, and so induced to part with their money. 
The capitalist making patriotic speeches is very like 
the fox in the medieval allegory preaching to the 
geese. 



144 



CHARACTER 



Unless we think things out carefully such considera- 
tions as these will destroy patriotism altogether, 
as they did in many minds during the recent war. 
I hold that we need and always shall need patriotism, 
but it must be of the right kind. Right patriotism 
is impossible unless the character of one's fellow- 
citizens is good, and also the general constitution 
of the state. These two conditions must advance 
pari passu ; it is useless to expect good public spirit 
among citizens of a bad state, and useless to introduce 
excellent institutions among a population w^hich 
is unable to appreciate and to work them. The 
socialist state will have both good institutions and 
a good population ; and its patriotism will be, 
compared to our present patriotism, like sunlight 
compared to moonshine, and like wine to a counter- 
feit of tinted water. 



§ 4. Patriotism cannot he replaced by human brother- 
hood. 

Can the patriotism which we feel towards our 
native land be replaced by a sentiment directed 
towards some wider combination ? I think not. 
Patriotism is a sublimation of primitive tribal feeling, . 
or, if you will, it is primitive tribal feeling with certain 
higher feehngs added to it. But the tribal feeHng 
must be there for a foundation. 

I do not believe that, as a motive of conduct, 
patriotism can be replaced by any sentiment of 
human brotherhood. What human brotherhood 
may mean exactly I do not know. If it means 
only a faint kindly feeling towards men as such, and 
a dislike to see or hear about their sufferings, I admit 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 145 



that it is a real motive in the minds of civilized 
people, though a weak one. If it is meant in the 
literal meaning of the words, it is a piece of sentimental 
cant, always false and often mischievous. Does 
anyone really mean to argue that we ought to extend 
family affection to all our fellow-citizens outside 
the family circle ? Genuine family affection is a 
very exclusive thing ; it demands that those who 
feel it should be closely en rapport with each other, 
and should be very sensitive to each other's thoughts 
and feelings. Now it is not possible to be on such 
terms with more than a few people at once ; and, 
if a man tries to exceed the natural limit of human 
powers, he is in danger of making a painful failure. 
Those who try to have too many brothers are likely 
to have no brothers at all ; and perhaps not even 
many friends. 

And * human brotherhood ' becomes still more 
absurd if we think of Englishmen treating as brothers 
all sorts of foreigners and savages — all the black 
and yellow men, the Fuegians, the Andamanese and 
the pigmies of Central Africa. 

§ 5. Or by international sentiment. 

A more definite proposal is to replace the patriotism 
of nations by the super-patriotism of international 
combination, expressed in such phrases as the ''parlia- 
ment of man and federation of the world." But 
this again is something which, though in a different 
way from human brotherhood, overpasses the capacity 
of human nature, and would not conduce to welfare, 
even if it were possible. Patriotic feeling, though 
far less intimate than family feeling, demands much 

10 



146 



CHARACTER 



sympathy and understanding from those who share 
it. Difference of language is a great barrier between 
men, so is difference of dress or manners or reUgion. 
A Londoner who finds himself in a purely Welsh- 
speaking district of our island feels it hard to maintain 
the same attitude that he is wont to have towards 
his own people ; and still more if he finds him- 
self in an Erse-speaking district of Connaught, 
where not only language, but also religion and 
the externals of life are so very different from 
London. 

But patriotism demands, not merely this unity 
of feeling, but also the intellectual condition that 
the agent should view the object of his patriotic 
sentiment as one thing. The object must, in Mr. 
Graham Wallas 's phrase, be some sort of " political 
entity " ; we ought to be able to personify it in some 
way, or to symbolize it by some sort of emblem. 
It is very hard to find any such emblem for the United 
Kingdom in which we live, and still harder to find 
one for the British Empire as a whole. What sort 
of emblem could be found for civilized Europe I 
can hardly imagine, except perhaps the Dame 
Europa of Punch's cartoons ; not to mention such 
aggregates as Christendom, or the civilized nations 
of the earth, including Japan, but perhaps excluding 
China. 

The conclusion which seems to be indicated then 
is that patriotism in the proper sense can exist 
only among men who are united by rather strong 
ties of sympathy. Now how far, it may be asked, 
does this agree with the actual state of patriotic 
feeling in the minds of our own people ? It explains, 
e.g., the loyalty of the Scotchman to Scotland, 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 147 



but does it explain the loyalty of the Scotchman 
to the United Kingdom ? This is worth discussing 
for a moment, for the sake of clearing up the issues 
of internationalism. I do not think there is much 
common patriotism as between the Englishman and 
the Scotchman, and still less as between the English- 
man and the Irishman. The component nations of 
the United Kingdom retain their traditions, ways 
of speech and manners ; they regard with pride their 
own country and its good points, but they do not 
draw satisfaction from the good points of other 
countries : an Englishman is not proud of Edinburgh, 
though he may admire it greatly, nor is a Scotchman 
proud of London. Altogether it seems as though 
patriotism in the true sense of the term is limited 
to the feelings of each member of our four component 
nations for his own nation. And yet there is a strong 
sentiment in the minds of, say, Scotchmen in favour 
of the United Kingdom. I think this is due to a 
feeling that the four nations are in partnership and 
have common interests and common enemies. The 
island of Britain has a great position in the world, 
which can be maintained only by loyal co-operation 
between the various races which inhabit it. The 
sentiment prompting loyal co-operation we call 
imperial loyalty. It seems to be something weaker 
than patriotism ; but it is as much as we can expect 
from the British population as a whole, and it is 
not expedient to ask for more. 

But even a sentiment of the force of imperial 
loyalty is not possible as between the nations of 
Western Europe. They have no common posses- 
sions and no common interests, except perhaps the 
preservation of peace ; still less have they the 



148 



CHARACTER 



sj^mpathetic feelings which are due to community 
of language, religion and manners. 

The whole idea of internationalism is based on 
the antagonism between capitalists and proletariat. 
' Capitalism is international/ say the internationalists ; 
' let us organize the proletariat internationally to 
fight it.' But such an interest is too negative, and 
perhaps too temporary, to give rise to a sentiment 
which is to replace patriotism. And in any case 
I do not think that capitalists should be treated as 
enemies. It is true that they are obsolescent and 
they do much harm ; but they still perform some 
functions which can hardly as yet be performed 
otherwise. Before we begin to fight them, let us 
see if we cannot render them quite superfluous ; 
and then contrive to persuade them peacefully 
out of existence. 

§ 6. The separateness of nations conduces to progress. 

Even if it were possible to unite into an international 
system the nations of Western Europe — British, 
French, Dutch, German and the rest — I doubt if 
the results would be good. There are two methods 
whereby men make progress : by competition and 
by co-operation. The competitive method, which 
we see in a perfect form among beasts of prey, 
works by elimination of the unfit ; the co-operative 
method by training and regulation in accordance 
with some plan for the common good. Within a 
civilized nation at present the best hope of progress 
lies in the method of co-operation. But as between 
the various nations of Europe there is no authority 
to make a common plan and no clearly defined 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 149 



object to be attained by one. For advance therefore 
we must look mainly to the method of competition. 
If a nation adopts an improvement in political 
organization or industry or warfare, it gains an 
advantage in international competition ; and other 
nations are bound to follow it. International 
competition in its most acute form is war, which is 
the great destroyer of obsolete political systems ; 
as witness the recent destruction of the German, 
Austrian and Turkish governments. The superiority 
of Western Europe in civilization has been due partly 
to the fact that it has consisted of several political 
units, approximately equal in force, each big enough 
to develop a culture of its own, continually in com= 
petition and learning continually from each other 
in all the elements which conduce to progress. A 
condition such as that of the Roman or the Chinese 
Empire, vast territories under a single sway, seems 
to tend rather towards stagnation. 

If ever the European nations are united into an 
effective federation, I think it will be in reference 
to some motive which hardly exists at present. 
Such a motive might come into existence if, say, 
the yellow races of Asia were to federate. The 
European nations might then feel that their interests, 
colonial and commercial, were threatened, and might 
form a counter-federation. Perhaps some change 
of this kind may ultimately terminate the present 
national system of Europe. But all this is in the 
remote future. In any case it would be something 
very different from the internationalism of existing 
internationalists. 



150 



CHARACTER 



§ 7. Under socialism there will he more objects upon 
which public affections can be directed ; and it 
will be the care of the state to encourage public 
affections among the citizens. 

When our society has been fully organized, the 
objects upon which public affections can be directed 
will be much more numerous than they are now, 
and much worthier. Among ourselves the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is not really 
an object upon which great affection can be bestowed, 
though it may be advantageous as a political organi- 
zation ; we ought to have, in addition, sub-national 
units — Scotland, Ireland and the rest — to serve as 
objects of a warmer and more natural affection. We 
may put the matter shortly by saying that the 
United Kingdom is an object which one can die for ; 
but Scotland an object which one can live for. 

As objects of a still narrower patriotism or public 
spirit there will be towns, counties and other local 
areas, just as there are now, but of better qualit^^. 
Town councils, for example, will represent much 
better than they do now the aspirations of the citizens, 
and will be more powerful agencies for the promotion 
of good living. And there will be, even more than 
now, societies, churches, clubs and institutions 
for purposes of education or culture. 

The deepest change will be in men's relationship 
to industrial and commercial organizations ; which 
for ordinary folk are the m^ost important of all, 
because they do the ordinary daily work of life. At 
present not much public spirit can be directed towards 
them, since they are private affairs existing for 
purposes of private gain. But, when purified from 



PUBLIC AFFECTIONS 151 



that taint, they will become suitable objects of 
loyalty. 

Granted that public affections are a valuable part 
of character, and few people, I suppose, would refuse 
to admit their value, it will be the business of states- 
men to give to the institutions of the commonwealth 
such a character that those who co-operate in them 
may entertain warm feelings towards them. Think 
for example of some definite institution, such as 
one for purposes of education, a school or a college. 
We find that the workers in such a place are fond 
of it and loyal to it when its purpose and character 
are good and dignified — it must be a really good 
school, not a wretched Dotheboys Hall ; when their 
pay is adequate and fairly apportioned ; and when 
they have a reasonable share in its management. 
We could easily find examples in our universities 
where these conditions are fulfilled, and where 
the results in the devotion of most of the workers 
are all that a socialist could desire ; and it would 
be still easier to find among our schools examples 
where the conditions are not fulfilled, and there is 
therefore demoralization and discontent. ^ In the 
future no institution will be approved if there is 
any feature in it which stifles the natural devotion 
of those who work for it. 

Patriotism, loyalty, public spirit will mean in 
the future something more positive and more fruitful 
than they mean now. We think of them as motives 
mainly to the performance of disagreeable tasks — 
fighting and other work which ma}^ be necessary 
for the preservation of the commonwealth, but 
which no one wants to do for its own sake. Of 

I E.g., the school in Walpole's Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill. 



152 



CHARACTER 



course, the dirty work will always have to be done : 
the patriot will have to fight, or at least to train 
for fighting ; he will always have to be a vigilant 
watchdog of the public service, so that it will be 
his duty to check waste, reprove delinquents and 
eliminate undesirables. But all this affords a 
negative and somewhat melancholy satisfaction ; 
a man needs rewards and honours to fortify him in 
the performance of such tasks. The patriot of the 
socialist state will find his public affections more 
valuable for their own sake ; he will get a continual 
satisfaction and pride from the excellent institutions 
of his country and from his conversation with his 
fellow-citizens whose characters are conditioned 
by those institutions. The more cultured men 
are and the wider their mental sweep, the more 
they will be uplifted by their country's greatness, 
and by their enjoyment of its intellectual and moral 
eminence ; while humbler minds who do not see 
far beyond the institutions through which they live 
will, though they have a narrower outlook and a 
less varied sensibility, find their compensation in the 
concentrated and single-hearted devotion which good 
and simple natures are privileged to feel. 



CHAPTER XI 



PRIVATE AFFECTIONS 

§ I. Socialism will strengthen private affections, because 
a moderate share of wealth is favourable to 
family life. 

There is no single element which can be used as 
an infallible test of human progress. Physical 
excellence, wealth, fighting-power, intelligence, 
patriotism — all these have to be considered when 
we want to evaluate a society. In all of them, 
I think, a socialist society will show superiority. 
But there is yet another element which I hold to 
be the most important of all, that is the development 
of private affections ; by which I mean the kindly 
feelings which men entertain towards each other. 
On the whole, these are the most important factors 
of character ; no one calls a man bad who loves and 
is beloved by the persons with whom he is conversant 
in private life. In this chapter I will try to explain 
the beneficial effect of socialism upon private affec- 
tions, in particular those of family and friendship. 

Common experience assures us that domestic or 
family affections can be well developed within wide 
variations of wealth ; there is plenty of love in 
cottages, and not a little in palaces also. None the less 
it is true that these affections are favoured most by 
a moderate degree of wealth, and that the extremes 

153 



154 



CHARACTER 



of riches and poverty are alike detrimental. Consider 
the conditions of family affection. It rests upon a 
basis of mere instinct, the feelings of mates towards 
each other, and of parents and children ; all this 
we share with animals. The distinctively human 
sort of family affection is based upon co-operation 
in the work of the home ; in particular that of rearing 
the children. This is influenced unfavourably both 
by riches and by poverty. Rich people are fatally 
tempted to get their work done for them by hired 
help ; or, perhaps I ought to say, compelled to do 
so : a large establishment with many social claims 
leaves no time for work in the home. And that 
impairs the parental relation ; parents who do not 
work personally for their children lose their hold 
upon them. Very poor people find domestic condi- 
tions difficult for an opposite reason ; they are so 
cramped, starved and harassed that a clean and 
tidy life is impossible. The children are a torment, 
and the parents cannot bring them up properly 
and enjoy them. If it were possible, therefore, to 
increase the amount of wealth possessed by the 
community and to divide it more equally, the result 
would be that many more persons would have 
opportunity of enjoying family life to the full and 
of developing its characteristic affections. 

§ 2. Whereas individualism both limits the number of 
those who can fully enjoy family life, and also 
aggravates the anti-social element in the family. 

I have already protested against the claim of 
individualists to be the defenders of the family. 
The " stately homes of England,'' with their tall 



PRIVATE AFFECTIONS 155 



ancestral trees and bounding deer and gliding swans, 
may be very beautiful and stately, but they are 
not typical centres of domestic affection ; they are 
altogether too big and pretentious for the natural 
needs of the family, and are full of alien mercenary 
service. The " cottage homes of England are often 
very dirty, as anyone may see by exploring the 
streets of Bethnal Green ; in many of them the 
dirt is so plentiful that it quite chokes the domestic 
affection. Between these two extremes lie the 
modest, comfortable homes of the upper hand-workers 
and of the professional class ; homes which are 
affectionate, and neither stately nor dirty. The 
individualists, who are partly foolish, like Mrs. 
Hemans, partly canting and dishonest, are fighting 
to maintain the extremes ; the socialist is trying 
to strengthen and extend the wholesome middle 
state. 

I have spoken before also of the anti-social tendency 
which is implicit in family life. The monogamous 
family is the best institution which has been invented 
by man so far ; but there is an element of narrowness 
and exclusiveness in it. We may deplore this, but 
it is quite inevitable. Persons whose circumstances 
compel them to take in boarders or ' paying guests ' 
always feel that their family life is impaired, however 
pleasant and acceptable the guests may be personally. 
This naturally repellent and semi-hostile attitude 
towards the outside world is aggravated by indivi- 
dualism. 

And it is very easy for a family man to be hard 
and even unscrupulous in his dealings with the out- 
side world ; as the proverb says, " A family man 
is capable of anything." He probably does not 



156 



CHARACTER 



like it—the remorseless economic pressure drives 
him to it ; he must use any sort of weapon against 
the rivals who would destroy his home. The more 
devoted a tradesman is to his home, the less he can 
afford to cherish public spirit, or to enjoy fine intel- 
lectual interests, or even to show a nice sense of 
honour in commercial dealing. The urgent claims 
of his family, the dreadful apprehension of seeing 
them in distress, stinted of the means of life or at 
least of the opportunities of culture, harden his 
heart and pervert his sense of justice. And so 
individualism not only restricts the number of 
those who have domestic affections, but con- 
verts it partially into a principle of bitterness and 
demoralization. 



§ 3. Friendship is based upon community of interest, 
which will prevail under socialism. 

The reader may have anticipated my line of argu- 
ment as to the effect of socialism upon the kind of 
affection which we call friendship. The foundation 
of friendship is community of interest ; liking the 
same objects, enjoying the same activities, and getting 
mutual help in pursuing them. Golf is a bond of 
friendship, so is partnership in any institution ; 
closest of all is the common interest of parents in 
the welfare of their children. Such are the condi- 
tions under which people take pleasure in each others' 
society. Friendship decays when interests diverge ; 
when one of the friends loses his taste for golf, when 
men dissolve partnership and become rivals in 



PRIVATE AFFECTIONS 



157 



business. Rivalry and conflict of interest make 
men dislike each other ; and, when they meet, they 
experience feelings of displeasure. 

As between men, the best condition perhaps for 
the formation of friendships is co-operation in some 
fairly extensive institution, which is big enough 
to give each man some choice of friends, but not so 
big as to prevent the individual from regarding it 
with affection, as a single object which is well within 
his mental grasp. The point may be illustrated 
from army life. The British Army is too big and 
too various to be loved as a whole : but a regiment 
of cavalry, say, may be regarded with great affection ; 
the officers form a society which is of suitable size 
for making friendships. Co-operations or partner- 
ships draw men together closely where the members 
have an important share in managing the institution, 
where each man really counts, and devoted service 
tells and is recognized. And they should be partner- 
ships which are not tainted by private greed ; the 
relation is at its best where men live by the institu- 
tion and live without anxiety, but are not fighting 
with each other or against the world. 

These conditions, so favourable to the growth 
of friendship, will prevail throughout society under 
socialism. A certain number of our institutions 
are already socialized, or at least organized upon 
semi-coUectivist principles ; such are the govern- 
ment services, including the army and navy, most 
of our schools and other places of education, and 
most of our religious institutions. Anyone who 
has been employed in a department of the public 
service, such for example as the British Museum, 
recognizes the kindliness and honesty which prevail 



158 



CHARACTER 



there. What is lacking is strenuousness ; and what 
has prevented the nation from adopting such institu- 
tions more widely is our failure so far to find a sub- 
stitute for the stimulus of private gain. But people 
who are in a position to compare them with ordinary 
commercial institutions recognize their moral supe- 
riority. I suppose it is this which is the truly 
attractive side of monastic life ; the security, the 
good-fellowship, the freedom from sordid rivalry 
and suspicion, and, where the community has 
practical activities, such as education, the sense of 
mutual helpfulness in a worthy task. In the society 
of the future most of the work of industry and 
commerce will be done by organizations which are 
as unselfish as a Jesuit community. 



§ 4. Whereas individualist competition produces conflict 
oj interest. 

Under a competitive system men's interests are 
upon the whole opposed to each other ; and this is 
especially true of the commercial classes. They are 
not the most intellectual element of the community — 
that pre-eminence belongs rather to professional men ; 
but what they lack in brilliance they gain in solidity. 
They ought to be the most solidly moral of all 
classes, and the most kindly. As it is, they are, 
owing to the influence of " beneficent private war," 
the most individualistic and mutually repellent. 

Working men combine in mutual-aid societies 
and trades-unions ; they have, at least, a common 
interest in protecting themselves against misfortune 
and oppression. Rich men join in clubs for pleasure ; 
not a very fruitful sort of combination, but better 



PRIVATE AFFECTIONS 159 



than none at all. Commercial men, though naturally 
friendly souls as a rule, are trained by their circum- 
stances to dislike each other. In Hobbes's phrase 
they *' have no pleasure (but on the contrary a 
great deal of grief) in keeping company." Hobbes 
himself was brought up in the family of a country 
tradesman. He is onty giving a new form to the 
old proverb, which doubtless he knew very well, 
that Two of a trade can never agree." 

§ 5. Socialism will raise the standard of morality in 
business life. 

If one were asked to sum up the moral effects of 
commercial competition in a phrase, one might use 
the terms ' trickery ' and ' hatred.' Though the 
majority of commercial men may be honest enough, 
yet in so large a body there will always be some 
rogues, or at least men who resort to ' sharp practice ' ; 
and these have a bad influence upon the general 
level of conduct. 

In some professions competition has been regulated 
by rules which are known as professional etiquette ; 
among doctors of medicine, for example, the bitterness 
of the struggle is mitigated in this way. The rules 
can be maintained, because the profession is organized 
and issues licences to those who desire to practise 
in it. The licence was originally an intellectual 
qualification ; but it has come to be used for moral 
purposes, and can be withdrawn for professional 
* misconduct,' such as advertising, which is not 
intrinsically reprehensible. Similar regulation is 
enjoyed by the legal profession. But among commer- 
cial men there is no regulation, and they therefore 



160 



CHARACTER 



experience the demoralizing influence of competition 
to the full. 

In the state of the future there will be much 
more regulation and organization than there is 
now, of commerce and industry as of everything else ; 
and it will be directed, as it rarely is now, towards 
moral no less than towards material ends. The 
result will be that many careers, which now are 
not considered as fit for a gentleman, will be despised 
no longer. The occupations which we count as 
genteel are mainly those which have been socialized 
more or less — the government services, the church, 
education — or are regulated so as to mitigate the 
influence of competition. For it is not merely the 
physical character of a kind of work that makes 
it desirable or undesirable. There is indeed nothing 
intrinsically degrading in manufacture, or commerce, 
or distribution. His Majesty's dockyards and arsenals 
manufacture, the Paymaster-General does commercial 
work, and the Army Service Corps does distribution ; 
and yet gentlemen are pleased to be employed in 
all those services, and go through them with their 
gentility unimpaired. The reason is that, while 
they are doing commercial work, they are not com- 
pelled to adopt commercial morality. 

In the character of the gentleman there are two 
main components, which come from very diverse 
sources ; one is a proper susceptibility to female 
influence, the other is courage and truth in behaviour 
towards men. Now courage and truth are not easy 
virtues to practise in individualist commerce. It 
is hard for the employer to feel calmly courageous 
against rivals who can resort to every kind of sub- 
terranean warfare. And it is hard for the employee 



PRIVATE AFFECTIONS 161 



to stand up against an employer who has his future 
entirely in his hands and can ruin him by an irre- 
sponsible act of will. In the presence of these 
dangers the bravest feel fear, and resort to the 
natural defence of the fearful, trickery. 

In deprecating the severity of commercial com- 
petition I do not mean to imply that there will be 
no competition in the socialist state. I have already 
said how essential to manliness it is that men should 
compete with each other. My complaint against 
individualist commercial competition is that it is 
underhand and rancorous, and that its prizes are 
bad. We see good competition in institutions which 
are purified and ennobled by the collectivist spirit ; 
in a department of the civil service, in a warship 
or a regiment, perhaps best of all in a college. College 
students compete continually in their studies and 
for the honours which are given for athletic skill 
and devotion. An Oxford undergraduate values 
highly the privilege of rowing in his college boat, a 
service which in itself is laborious and exacting ; 
and still more highly the much more laborious 
privilege of rowing for his university. But if he 
fails he feels no bitterness, nor does he resort to 
stratagem to gain success ; because he has confidence 
in the judgment of those who rule the competition. 
The prizes of such contests, if one can speak of 
prizes, are of the old Greek kind ; the right to wear 
a certain shade of hat-ribbon, or a minutely different 
style of trimming on a boating blazer ; or, greatest 
prize of all, a small blue cap with two crossed oars 
embroidered in white above the peak. 

Not only is commercial competition bad in 
itself, but its chief prize is demoralizing. The 

11 



162 



CHARACTER 



mere possession of great riches tends to injure a 
man's character : it means an unreasonable and 
greedy claim upon the stock of goods produced by 
the community ; it means a dangerous power over 
the minds and bodies of those around him ; it means 
an enervating and degrading idleness, or at least 
the liberty to refuse to work. The children of 
those who have achieved eminent commercial suc- 
cess are none the better for their inheritance ; they 
degenerate under the influence of riches, and lose 
the vigorous, grasping abilities of their fathers. 

Assuredly there will be competition in the socialist 
state, but it will be the competition of good sports- 
men. There will be wealth in the prizes, but not 
hereditary wealth. What will appeal most to the 
imagination will be honours, distinctions and records 
of service ; above all, posts of honourable employ- 
ment in which further service can be done. Such 
things may seem unsubstantial to the commercial 
mind ; and yet to other minds as precious as the 
wreath of wild olive in the ancient Olympic games. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 

§ I. Under socialism the influence of woman will he 
increased, which will make society more refined. 

Already the influence of woman is very great 
in English society. Superficially this is shown 
by marks of outward respect, raising of hats, fetching 
of chairs and so forth ; in a deeper way by the 
deference which we pay to female ideas in regard 
to conduct and morals. When female influence is 
withdrawn, as with Englishmen who go to work 
alone in barbarous countries, there often occurs a 
sad moral declension. But usually it is not per- 
manent ; the restoration of female influence soon 
pulls the ordinary Englishman back up to the level 
on which he was originally trained. 

The degree to which woman exercises influence 
in a society is one test of civilization. This may 
be illustrated in various ways : by comparing our 
own society with other contemporary societies of 
lower culture ; by comparing the England of to-day 
with the England of the past ; by comparing the 
upper with the lower classes in present society. 
For comparison we need not adduce quite savage 
or barbarous nations ; take such a country as Persia, 
which stands comparatively high in the scale. Persian 
ladies make it a rule never to appear in public : 

163 



164 



CHARACTER 



if b^^ any accident a woman of good position does 
appear, the national code of politeness enjoins that 
she should be completely ignored ; any act of 
friendliness or deference would be interpreted with 
a sinister meaning. One may draw another illus- 
tration from South Africa, where Boers and British 
live as neighbours under precisely similar conditions. 
The Boers are an excellent race, superior to us in 
some elementary qualities, but inferior in culture ; 
and it is very noticeable how the}^ are wanting in 
courtesy and forms of respect for women. Similarly 
we msiy measure the distance by which we have 
advanced bej^ond the England of Shakespeare's 
time by noting how much there is in his plays which 
female influence would not allow us to tolerate 
to-day. 

In the England of the future, female influence 
should be much increased. The outward forms of 
respect may not be greater — may even be diminished ; 
but women will have more real power. This, I 
believe, will make for good. The general effect may 
be described as an enhancement in the refinement 
of society. Women are naturally more refined than 
men, or are at least more susceptible to refining 
influences. They dislike more strongl}/ than men 
objects which are dirty and coarse, and conduct 
which is offensive and violent ; they are more sensitive 
to the thoughts and feelings of the people around 
them. Where they have power, they impose their 
preferences upon general society. Some of the 
refinement which they produce is merely aesthetic 
and expressed in outward behaviour ; but much 
of it is concerned with serious morality. 

The personal sources of influence which women 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 165 



possess are various, many in number and liable to 
change with changing conditions ; unlike the in- 
fluence of man, which has always rested upon his 
strength, courage and mental vigour. The primitive 
source of female influence, sex, always remains 
the most powerful of all ; but it does not avail 
by itself to put women into a strong social position, 
as we may see by their treatment among savages. 
In more civilized conditions the sex-power of women 
is reinforced by their capacities for making a home 
and educating children ; by their personal beaut}^ and 
aesthetic value generally ; and by their refinement 
and good taste. As men improve they are able 
to appreciate more highly those qualities in women ; 
and so women have come to the position which they 
enjoy in good English society. But that is con- 
siderably short, I think, of what we shall see in the 
future, when women are better than they are now and 
are better able to make their tastes prevail. 

All the present sources of female influence ought 
to be enhanced in the future ; because the country 
will be wealthier than it is now and the wealth better 
distributed. The standard of physical vigour and 
beauty should be much higher ; there should be 
more homes, and more opportunities of making 
homes beautiful ; and more families of children. 
Poverty depresses women and prevents them from 
developing their aesthetic gifts. Excess of wealth 
spoils them another way ; it encourages the frivolous 
element of their nature and makes them into play- 
things of men, elegant perhaps, but certainly not 
wholesome. 

The power which these sources of influence confer 
upon women now will be greatly strengthened by 



166 



CHARACTER 



the economic independence which they will have 
under socialism. Possession of wealth and social 
prestige always strengthens the possessor and 
enhances the potency of any other gift which may 
happen to belong to him. If two men are equally 
eloquent, and one is very rich and the other poor, 
the former will always be heard with more respect. 
The heroine of a fairy story is always a princess ; 
though the standard of beauty and virtue among 
the daughters of kings is no higher than among 
the daughters of merchants. 

§ 2. Increase of female infl^ience will have no counter- 
vailing drawback ; such faults as women now 
display are due mainly to their economic 
dependence. 

Will there be a set-off against the advantages 
which may be expected from an increase in female 
influence ? I think not ; but it is easy to explain 
why some people may think so. The faults which 
women display are familiar enough, mainly through 
the influence of literature. Female faults are very 
effective for literary purposes ; an absurd woman 
can always be made funny and a bad woman tragic. 
But female virtues do not make good * copy ' ; 
unlike the masculine virtues, which are so exciting 
and spectacular. On the whole, women are not 
inferior to men in their capacity for virtue ; their 
most conspicuous faults are due to the injustice 
under which they have suffered. What will be 
generally admitted is that they have great superiority 
in the conservative virtues, those which preserve 
for society the good things already achieved by the 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 16T 



race. And these virtues seem to be the most 
fundamental of all ; for to maintain what we 
possess is even more important than to add to our 
store. 

The economic injustice from which women have 
suffered has aggravated the failings to which they 
are naturally inclined and has diminished their 
natural virtues. 

Women can never be as brave as men, because 
of their muscular inferiority. Now, when a creature 
which is weak finds itself opposed to a powerful 
enemy, it is always inclined to resort to trickery. 
Here then we have a natural female failing ; but 
it is aggravated when economic weakness is added 
to physical. For ages women have been compelled 
to scheme and cajole for the share of wealth which 
should be theirs of right. Where women have in- 
dependence and are exempt from any sort of bully- 
ing, they become nearly as honest as men. We need 
fear no declension of veracity and honour through 
female influence in the socialist state. 

Another natural female failing is an excessive love 
of personal adornment, the chief motive of which 
is coquetry. Well-educated and sensible women 
have little of the fault ; but there are so many of 
our female citizens who are neither well-educated 
nor sensible. And so we see women wasting great 
quantities of wealth upon frippery which is certainly 
not useful and often not even beautiful. For this 
they neglect their household duties and their children ; 
sometimes they injure their own health and diminish 
the comfort of those around them. 

A great part of this folly, which at present brings so 
much contempt upon women, is due to their economic 



168 



CHARACTER 



dependence. The natural relation of the sexes is 
that the male should do all the courting. The rule 
is very old and deep-seated among mankind, and 
is supposed to hold good among all classes and in 
all countries ; it is a reproach to a woman that she 
lays herself out to attract. But among the upper 
classes of our society the pressure of economic 
conditions is too strong ; if girls want husbands, 
they must bestir themselves and take active steps 
to attract notice. As a lady once remarked to me, 
" The girls who get married are the girls who want 
to get married." Working people are in a more 
natural position : an unmarried workman is a very 
forlorn and comfortless creature ; he needs a wife 
so much that the working girl need not worry 
herself about artificial enticements, even if she could 
afford them. But a bachelor of the upper classes 
is in a different position ; he can hire a housekeeper. 
As a rule he looks out for a girl with money ; not 
an inheritance in prospect, but with present posses- 
sions.^ A portionless bride stands under deep 
economic obligations to her husband. Portionless 
spinsters, therefore, feel bound to seek strong rein- 
forcements to their natural attractions. Hence the 
mute appeal of dress and ornament ; earrings, 
feathers, flounces, sharp-pointed shoes and bangles 
are nothing but an advertisement of the wearer's 
great desire for matrimony. The appeal is amusing 
or painful, according to the observer's frame of 
mind ; it becomes really pathetic when we know 
that the lady is seeking for a bridegroom who will 

I This is very noticeable on the Continent. Young men of 
student age often announce very plainly that they mean to 
' marry money.' 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 169 



consent to share with her an income which he probably 
thinks is hardly enough for one. 

There is no reason to fear that women will be 
dowdy under socialism. Intelligent women are hardly 
ever dowdy ; they know it is their mission to be 
ornamental and to humanize the world with their 
grace and beauty. The change which socialism 
will make is that there will be a much larger number 
of women who have good taste and the means of 
indulging it, and that the good motive of desiring 
to be beautiful will not be exaggerated till it becomes 
a vice and leads to foolishness. 

The most characteristic virtue of woman, which 
is modesty, is impaired by economic dependence. 
Modesty is a kind of reserve and requires some 
strength of character. Any sort of strong conduct 
is made more difficult when the agent is weak econo- 
mically. 

I have already alluded to the husband-hunting 
of the upper-class maiden. A result of the competi- 
tive search for husbands is that forwardness becomes 
a factor in race-survival, and that the more reserved 
women tend to leave no descendants. 

Much more serious is the mischief of what is called 
the Social Evil. It would not be appropriate to 
enter upon a discussion of the matter here. I 
only wish to say once more that its main cause is 
economic ; men who have money are able to buy 
women who have none. When this cause has been 
removed, society would have to deal only with 
such irregularity as is due to passion : and there 
ought to be no more difficulty in dealing with 
this than with other passionate outbursts, such 
as revenge for example. The ill-success in dealing 



170 



CHARACTER 



with sexual vice in the past has been due to lack 
of female co-operation. 



§ 3. Women approve of the kind of male character 
which is brave, without being cruel. 

It seems possible to say more in detail what kind 
of improvements are likely to be made in the characters 
of men by an extension of the influence of women. 

Although there will be more refinement, there 
will not be more softness or disinclination to face 
danger. Just because women are not physically 
brave themselves, they need the bravery of men. 
The influence of women in stimulating men to show 
courage may be seen very plainly in primitive societies ; 
there is nothing which an Indian * brave ' or warrior 
dreads more than the jeers and reproaches of the 
women, if he fails to protect them against their 
enemies. Women are naturally unwilling that war 
should begin ; but, when it has begun, they are 
passionately eager for victory. ^ But, though women 
dislike cowardice, they also dislike savagery and 
cruelty. The man who is brave is willing to fight, 
and in the heat of action he does not mind inflicting 
pain. The man who is cruel enjoys inflicting 
pain apart from fighting. This character is greatly 
disliked by women. Cruel women certainly exist ; 
but the vice is less common among them than among 
men. As a rule, they are disagreeably af!ected by 

I This was very noticeable in England during the Great 
War. 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 171 



the sight of suffering. And so, in any society where 
female influence is strong, measures are taken against 
cruelty : against the maltreatment of animals and 
children, and against allowing human beings to 
endure the extreme privations of want. It is well- 
known that there is a marked difference in the 
treatment of animals as between the English and 
some other European nations, the Spanish for 
example. And I think this is mainly due to the 
greater influence of women in our society. 

§ 4. Which is temperate. 

We may hope in the future to see a great improve- 
ment in temperance, i.e. restraint -in the use of 
alcohol. Intemperance is a failing to which the 
most energetic races seem to be specially inclined. 
The main effect of alcohol upon man is to weaken 
self-control, so that the agent responds more readily 
and violently to stimuli, to impressions from without 
or to thoughts from within. That suits the men 
of the North European races ; they like outbursts 
of violent activity. A good form of the tendency 
appears in devotion to strenuous athletics ; a bad 
form in bouts of drinking, which give the same 
happy, explosive feeling in another way. A game 
of Rugby football and a drunken ' binge ' are 
things of very different effect and value ; but they 
seem to be prompted by similar conditions of mind 
and body. 

The dynamic nature of women is very different ; 
their energy is more continuous, but less capable 
of extreme efforts. The games they love are quieter 
and less contentious. In a way they are more ex- 



172 



CHARACTER 



citable than men ; easily moved to laughter or 
tears, easily cheered up or depressed : but their 
excitements are comparatively superficial, and do 
not manifest themselves in the major movements 
of the body. No decent woman likes to lose her 
self-control. Intemperance in woman argues a much 
more serious deterioration than in man. 

There are many things in drunkenness that dis- 
gust women : the stinking breath, the vomiting, the 
loud, coarse, blethering talk, the clumsy, ineffective 
movements, the mental and moral obtuseness and 
selfishness. It is mainly through the increased 
influence of women that drinking habits are regarded 
with less indulgence now than formerly. In Pickwick 
they are treated as amiable and amusing, a trifling 
infirmity of excellent men — like taking snuff. In 
one of Lever's novels there is a phrase in which the 
hero speaks with admiration of some squires in an 
Irish county as '* the hardest-drinking set of gentlemen 
it was ever my fortune to meet." In my own boy- 
hood I remember that the sight of a notorious 
drunkard being trundled home through the village 
on a wheelbarrow was regarded as eminently funny ; 
I understand that the standard in English country 
life has now changed. 

Advocates of temperance have alienated the 
sympathy of thoughtful men by insisting solely 
upon measures of repression, instead of considering 
what the psychological needs are which make men 
drink, and how those needs can be satisfied whole- 
somely. They have been building puny barriers 
against a flood which should be diverted into profit- 
able side-channels. Englishmen will never cease 
to crave for drink so long as their lives are dull 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 173 



and monotonous and they are denied proper out- 
lets for their explosive energies. The advocates of 
temperance should exert themselves to give boys 
a taste for athletic games, and provide full oppor- 
tunities for indulging in them. Another remedy 
is to see that young men have abundant opportunities 
of female society ; the more that men are brought 
under the influence of decent women, the less likely 
they are to lapse into intemperance. Temperance 
reformers have given the impression that they view 
as ideal the young man who is too poor-spirited ever 
to break out into a * spree,' and too shy and backward 
to laugh and joke with young women. 

When society has been reformed in accordance 
with the best psychological advice, no undue tender- 
ness will be shown towards those weak and vicious 
persons who persist in drinking to excess. Women 
suffer horribly from the intemperance of sons and 
husbands ; and when they have full political power 
they will take measures to protect themselves. 
Perhaps they may even insist on ' prohibition,' a 
measure which would not do the nation any harm, 
but which seems undesirable at present in view of 
the strong feeling against it in the minds of many 
excellent people ; it has the disadvantage also that 
it can be evaded easily by subterfuges which injure 
the social standard of morality. 

§ 5. And in which the sex-instinct is gratified by faint 
stimulation. 

It is not derogatory to women to say that their 
interest in the business of reproduction is deeper 
than men's and occupies relatively a greater part 



174 



CHARACTER 



of their life. In man the passion is more acute and 
violently stimulative upon occasion, in woman it 
is much quieter ; but it is more pervasive, because it 
belongs more to the central region of consciousness. 
When the influence of man is exclusively predominant 
in a society, the tone in regard to sex is coarse and 
the interest is intermittent ; in the best minds there 
is a note of contempt towards the whole matter. ^ 
Not so in a society where women have their proper 
share of influence. 

The sort of man whom women like is one who is 
far from being sexually cold, but differs widely 
from the direct passionateness of the savage. He 
may be passionate enough upon occasion ; indeed, 
ought to be. But in general his sexual interest, 
though continuous, is moderate and well-controlled, 
and is directed more upon the secondary qualities of 
women — their beauty, their grace and liveliness, their 
conversation, their dress, and all the pleasing attri- 
butes in which men do not share. To such men female 
society is a tonic or stimulant ; they are cheered 
by it, take thought about their appearance, talk 
and laugh more than usual, and make efforts to 
shine in conversation. Being so much dependent 
upon women for happiness, they are attentive 
and sympathetic to them, think much of their 
likes and dislikes, and are compliant with their 
reasonable demands. All this faint gratification 
of the instinct is no proper substitute for having 
a wife of one's own ; in fact, we are inclined to 
despise a ladies* man who has never married. But 

I This was so in ancient Rome, especially among the philo- 
sophers. The modern philosopher is far otherwise. 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN 175 



it is in this way that sex becomes an influence pro- 
moting culture and civilization. 

Here, I think, we have the element which, when 
added to a punctilious sense of honour, makes up 
the character of the gentleman ; gentlemen do not 
tell lies, and they do not treat women merely as 
females. 

What is at the back of much of the opposition 
to socialism is the fear that in the socialist state 
there will be no gentility. The fear is ill-founded, 
if my analysis of gentility was correct. There 
will be more gentility under socialism because, 
when wealth is better distributed, men will have 
more leisure to appreciate the finer points of women, 
and women themselves will reach a higher level of 
attractiveness and culture. And, as women will 
have more power then in society, the boor will find 
himself everywhere sharply discouraged ; but a 
pleasing social manner will conduce to prosperity, 
even more than it does to-day. 

§ 6. And is sublimated. 

In cultured society the sex impulse is moderated, 
not only by faint gratification, but also by * sub- 
limation.' An elementary passion is sublimed when 
its force is partly drawn off into channels of higher 
activity. Among animals we may see how one 
kind of excitement diffuses itself through other 
parts of the system ; in a menagerie, for example, 
the wolf, when feeding-time draws near, paces 
fiercely and restlessly up and down its cage. Among 
men we may illustrate sublimation from what happens 
in regard to the satisfaction of hunger. All men. 



176 



CHARACTER 



savage and civilized, like eating ; and so far they 
are similar. But the pleasure of the savage is more 
direct ; more like that of animals, who care nothing 
for the circumstances of their meal. Contrast the 
attitude which the civilized man adopts towards 
feeding ; besides the direct pleasure, he experiences 
a pleasant stimulation which diffuses itself widely 
through many channels, and makes him take an 
interest in objects which are connected only in an 
indirect way with food. Men like to have pleasant 
company over their meals ; or at least an interesting 
book, if no company is to be had : they are affected 
by details accompanying the food, such as the decora- 
tion of the room, the character of the service, the 
quality of the table-ware and cutlery. These refine- 
ments mean nothing to the savage, but much to 
the civilized man ; they make all the difference 
between a meal which is enjoyable and one which 
is merely a natural necessity, perhaps even between 
good digestion and dyspepsia. Such are some of 
the ways in which men become refined in the matter 
of eating, and in which the most fundamental of 
all our appetites takes on a new meaning without 
losing the old. 

In the passion of sex the possibilities of refinement 
and sublimation are much greater. This is because 
the object of the passion, woman, has many more 
interesting aspects even than food ; and, as being 
a human personality, is connected with more of 
our higher activities and powers. Man gains the 
favour of woman not only by the distinctively manly 
qualities of action, but also by displaying the gifts 
of fine intelligence and artistic capacity ; for they 
are manifestly valuable in a husband. Thus can 



THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN 177 



we explain some of the most pleasing and characteristic 
qualities of young men. Normally they are interested 
in the phj-sical excellence of men, and in the attrac- 
tive secondary qualities of women ; they play 
athletic games and write love-poetry — all that ex- 
plains itself. But furthermore they carry their 
ardour and enthusiasm into fields which seem widely 
different, but with which a sex connection is not 
obscurely traceable. Young men of good quality, 
when they feel themselves coming into the powers 
of manhood, are disposed to appreciate all noble 
and beautiful objects and to embark upon spiritual 
adventures and discoveries ; they are captivated 
by ideals and eager for hard and strange philosophical 
inquiries ; they look down far-stretching vistas of 
science and art. All this is a secondary effect of 
sexual passion, and at the same time a way of mitigat- 
ing its violence. Women, although they may not 
have reasoned the matter out, know what to look 
for in young men, and what style of life is good for 
them. They like those ardent souls, and discern 
in them the rich possibilities of their future. 

If the influence of woman by a disastrous miracle 
were suddenly to cease, art would perish quite and 
philosophy come near to perishing. So long as 
Englishwomen are cultured and maintain their 
influence, there is no fear that those higher spiritual 
energies will suffer ; or that, as some anti-socialists 
profess to fear, our society will be reduced to a dead 
level of commonplace materialism. 



12 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 

§ I. There cannot he a high intellectual level under 
individualism. 

I REMEMBER oiice listening to an essay written by 
an Oxford tutor, attacking the proposals of socialism 
because of the intellectual decline which they would 
cause. He drew a gloomy picture of a community 
of small people without any sort of intellectual 
distinction or social ' style/ living in small brick 
villas with the week's washing hanging out in the 
back-garden. All this seems to me to illustrate 
an old mental confusion. ' At present/ the tutor 
must have argued to himself, * small people living 
in simple surroundings do not care much for intel- 
lectual things. Socialism will simplify the lives of 
the directing classes ; therefore they will be less 
intellectual.' In the discussion which followed the 
reading of the essay someone pointed out that an 
expensive establishment does not confer any real 
intellectual distinction ; and that intellectual interests 
are not extinguished by having the family washing 
done at home, provided that there are other causes 
which quicken them. 

Sad indeed would be the prospect if social progress 
led inevitably to an intellectual level lower than 
that which prevails to-day. I have mentioned 
already some of the graver defects of individualist 

178 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 179 



society ; but, to a mind preoccupied with philosophic 
and literary interests, there is nothing more grievous 
than our intellectual deadness and the discourage- 
ments which oppress original thinking. The minds 
of working people are always interesting, because 
of their closeness to nature and the facts of life ; 
especially those who follow occupations, such as 
agriculture, which are primitively congenial to man. 
They do not themselves study, but they richly 
repay others for studying them. Professional men, 
such as lawyers and doctors, must be intelligent in 
order to do their work efficiently, and they have a 
fund of wisdom gained in their wide experience 
of life. But professional men do not set the tone 
in our society ; that is determined by our dominant 
class, the idle rich. 

It would be a miracle if the rich were anything 
but indifferent to intellect. Somewhere in a book 
on English public=schools I have seen reflections 
upon the educational results of the system as exem_- 
plified by the pupils of Eton. Year by year there 
passes out of that great institution a stream of 
youths, good-natured, well-mannered, well-grown, 
but without intellectual interests, rather with a 
cynicism about the value of intellect and a contempt 
for knowledge. All this agrees closely with my 
own first-hand experience of a great school nearly 
equal in social standing to Eton. If I remember 
rightly, the author I am thinking of attributes this 
failure to the educational system of the school. 
Surely it is due rather to the social system in which 
the boys were reared. These boys are not fools ; 
they observe well enough what goes on around them. 
It is evident to them that their parents have no use 



180 



CHARACTER 



for knowledge, at least not for possessing it them- 
selves : they can hire knowledge, if they want it. 
They thrive and are leaders of society by virtue 
of wealth ; they are respected for what they own, 
not for what they know. Whyever should a boy 
of this class want to learn ; why should he * swot ' 
to acquire the poor accomplishments of the * ushers ' 
whom his father pays to teach him ? 

The rich are at least removed above the pressure 
of economic competition ; and so there are scattered 
among them not a few who value things of intellect. 
But, with the commercial people who are in the 
thick of the struggle, the pressure is too severe to 
allow the growth of intellectual interests. There 
are none so poor intellectually as these people, and 
none whose minds are less interesting to explore. 
The whole class is penetrated by a spirit of competitive 
rancour which prevents a man from taking a kindly 
interest in his fellows, and by a spirit of private 
greed which looks upon the world with a hungry 
gaze, indifferent to everjrthing but what can be turned 
into money. 

So long as our individualism endures, we can 
never expect much improvement in our intellectual 
life. In such a society a man devoted to intellectual 
discovery must be viewed as something strange — 
half crank, half prodigy. Such men have a bad time 
in a world dominated by alien interests, and find 
themselves continually in opposition. 

§ 2. Under socialism there will he more scope for 
intelligence in the daily business of life. 

Now for the prospects under socialism. And first 
let us try to get clear ideas about good intelligence 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 181 



and the conditions under which it arises. We ought 
not to begin with the highest forms, the writer and 
the artist. These men appear in a strange fashion ; 
at present our analysis is unequal to discerning 
from what causes they spring : but it is certain that 
they appear only in a society in which there is plenty 
of intelligence of a lower kind, and which has reached 
a fair standard of general culture. 

The main work of intelligence is to guide 
the movements of the body. The more elaborate the 
movements by which a creature gets its living, the 
higher its intelligence. The earliest advances depend 
therefore upon improvements in methods of procuring 
food. The first and greatest step of all was made 
when our remote ancestors took to hunting ; for 
that needs quicker and more varied movement 
than the vegetable feeding of apes. Another great 
function of intelligence is to foresee the future and 
provide for it. This is why the agriculturist is in 
advance of the hunter, because he is always thinking 
of the change of seasons and providing for future 
years. Then comes the stage of machinery, which 
needs a grade of intelligence higher still. 

In the next generation or two there will be probably, 
quite apart from the developments of socialism, 
an increased application of machinery and of scientific 
methods to the raising of food and to processes 
of manufacture. But socialism will greatly increase 
this tendency. It will be recognized that a high 
per capita production of wealth is necessary to an 
advanced culture, and systematic efforts will be 
made to secure it. The increased application of 
machinery to agriculture will cause by itself a great 
advance in the intelligence of our population. 



182 



CHARACTER 



If mechanical production is regulated in accordance 
with the general interests of the community, the 
results will be good ; but, if our individualist system 
goes on, there are grave dangers to be feared. The 
tendency of the individualist employer, who aims 
at * scientific management,' is to put all intelligent 
work into the hands of a select class, while reducing 
the rank and file of labour to the condition of living 
tools, who repeat a limited set of movements without 
variation. In this way output may be increased 
and expenses reduced, which is naturally the supreme 
concern of the employer. But in reference to general 
welfare the question must always be raised whether 
increase of output will compensate for the degrada- 
tion of the workman. I hope that in the future 
this difficulty will be faced, and an attempt made to 
solve it upon psychological and moral principles. 
There will always be monotonous work to be done ; 
but this hurts nobody, so long as there is not too 
much of it and it is mixed up with something more 
intellectual. And so perhaps, in the future, arrange- 
ments will be made by which factory labour will 
be alternated with, say, gardening ; or the work of 
a clerk with that of an engineer, and so on. There 
may be some loss in quantity of output ; but this 
will be compensated by increase of intelligence, and 
as a consequence by increase of happiness. 

In every society the main supply of men of higher 
intelligence comes from the professions. Now those . 
who talk about the decay of intelligence under socialism 
ignore the obvious consideration that the demand 
for professional skill will be at least as great then 
as it is now. There will certainly be more education, 
more medicine and more scientific research ; law 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 183 



probably will be greatly reduced, because there will 
be less private property to quarrel over ; there will 
probably be more art and literature, and perhaps 
not less religion. And professional men will not 
be demoralized, as they are now, by commercialism. 
They will be able to devote themselves whole-heartedly 
to their work, instead of worr^/ing about their daily 
bread and forming schemes for outdoing their rivals. 

§ 3. While political conditions will he favour able to 
the highest intellectual production. 

It is an interesting line of speculation to conjecture 
what effect socialism will have upon the highest 
kind of intellectual production. Will literary men, 
artists and creative minds generally be encouraged 
more than they are now ? It is the opinion of 
writers such as Mr. Mallock that they certainly will 
not. Let us consider, however, what are the condi- 
tions under which creative work reaches the highest 
level — in the field of literature for example. The 
general conditions can be stated, I think ; though 
we cannot say exactly from what causes m_en of 
genius arise. 

The most fundamental condition is that there 
should be a certain level of wealth and intelligence ; 
not only because literary men need patronage, i.e. 
persons to buy their books or otherwise provide 
them with the necessaries of life, but because such 
men do not appear at all in very poor and backward 
societies. Now I have endeavoured to show that 
both in wealth and intelligence the socialist state 
will have a great advantage over the individualist. 
Nor is it likely that patronage will be lacking to 



184 



CHARACTER 



creative men, such, for example, as novelists. Mr. 
Wells has made the suggestion that every writer 
who has proved himself capable of first-rate work 
should be pensioned and raised above the fear of 
want, with the certainty that he will continue to 
produce for the mere pleasure and glory of it. This 
seems to me just the sort of proposal which would 
commend itself to a socialist state ; not merely 
because it would enable novelists to live, but because 
it would decommercialize them : it would substitute 
a modest and assured competence for the possibility 
of large uncertain gains. English literary history 
has few cases of gifted novelists who have starved, 
but many cases of genius spoilt by writing for money : 
look at Scott and Dickens ; or one might find examples 
nearer to our own day. 

Patronage, however, in the sense of money rewards, 
is not the most important condition for the production 
of first-rate creative work. The Athenian dramatists 
seem to have written without any money rewards 
at all ; while, on the other hand, under the Roman 
Empire after the golden age there was plenty of 
patronage, but very little first-rate work. I will 
try to explain the condition that I am thinking of, 
so that we may know how far we can expect to see 
it under socialism. 

Granted that a society has wealth and intelligence 
and that it is not rent by civil strife or oppressed 
by foreign domination, we may expect to see high 
literary production in it, if its politics are good ; 
by which phrase I mean that its political activity 
is full of life and deeply interesting, and the state 
as a whole an object of admiration to enthusiastic 
minds. This was so in the most brilliant epochs, 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 185 



the Periclean in Athens, the Augustan in Rome 
and the Elizabethan in England. What is very 
much against literature is a hopeless condition 
of public affairs — a savage tyranny, a wooden 
bureaucracy, an ecclesiastical domination such as 
that of the Papacy in Central Italy. There are 
many ways of securing political vitality. The fault 
of the Roman imperial system was that it had no 
principle of progress ; it had many good points 
under Augustus, but was certain to degenerate into 
despotism. The merit of democracy is that it is 
more adaptable than the others, and renews its 
vigour under various conditions. 

A good condition of politics stimulates the minds 
of literary men ; it gives them something to say 
and motives for saying it well. If a man finds 
himself in a mean and trivial environment, he may 
have all the gifts of the stylist and yet feel no call 
to exert them. The state is the greatest and most 
magnificent of human institutions, and dominates 
the mental attitude of all cultured men. We see 
this even in poets who are essentially frivolous, 
such as Horace and Ovid ; they would never have 
written with all that exquisite finish, but for the 
exaltation of spirit which came to them from the 
imperial greatness of Rome. 

And it is only when political affairs are favourable 
that we can expect to find a good standard of taste 
in the public. When the ruling class has the oppor- 
tunity of an honourable career in which a man can 
display his best qualities, then its tone rises : it 
gives a sympathetic hearing to first-rate genius ; 
it appreciates high themes of literature and is keenly 
critical of workmanship. We think of Maecenas 



186 



CHARACTER 



and his circle mainly as the generous patrons of the 
Augustan poets ; but perhaps their talk was even 
more helpful than their gifts of money and farms. 

Whether socialism will be favourable to literature 
must depend upon the quality of the ruling class 
and the effect which the system has upon their minds. 
Will the service of the state attract men of large 
views and enterprising character ? Will it appeal 
to their imagination and inflame their enthusiasm. 
Will it make them feel that they are contributing 
to exalt the national greatness ? I see no reason 
to doubt that this spirit will prevail in the England 
of the future ; and, if this is so, we may be sure that 
gifted men will arise to put into literary form the 
aspirations of the governors of the commonwealth. 

§4. And original thinking will not be repressed, as it 
is now, by orthodoxy. 

Upon philosophy and thought generally the 
influence of political conditions is perhaps even 
greater than upon fine literature, and so we need 
not fear any speculative decline under socialism. 
At any rate there will not be then, as there are now, 
agencies which set themselves against inquiry and 
embitter the lives of original men. In that reaction- 
ary book of his, The Man versus The State, Herbert 
Spencer represented socialism as a sort of super- 
Prussianism, in which men would be drilled and 
regimented to the extinction of all individuality. 
Whyever should socialists want to repress individu- 
ality ? Men do not persecute unless they are in 
danger. We know why the Inquisition wanted to 
burn Galileo ; it was because he threatened the 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 187 



basic ideas of Catholicism, and consequently the 
revenues of its priests. But how can socialism 
be hurt by any advance of science or philosophy ? 

There are two great organized forces in our present 
society, the church and the capitalist system, which 
rest upon foundations that have much to fear from 
the inquiries of original men. The hatred of novelty 
in the leaders of these s^^stems, their intolerance 
and Toryism, are not the expression of a blind herd- 
instinct, but a well-founded anticipation of danger. 
Rousseau's life-story is the classic example of the 
sufferings which a corrupt society will inflict upon a 
thinker who questions the foundations upon which 
it stands. So it is to-day, though the sinister powers 
set about their work less openly. The Christian 
churches have lost the authority which enabled 
them to burn Giordano Bruno and Vanini, and to 
drive Rousseau from exile to exile ; but their influence 
is still very great and pervasive. It is practically 
impossible for a thinker holding an official position 
to teach freely in regard to religion. This is the 
main cause why the level of philosophic study in 
this country is much lower than it might be. By far 
the most interesting part of philosophy is metaphysics, 
and all metaphysical inquiries issue in religion ; 
unless a thinker can show the bearing of his specula- 
tions upon the relation of man to God and upon the 
destiny of the human soul, he loses half his power. 
Greek philosophy is so splendidly stimulating to 
us, even after all these centuries, because its teachers 
always spoke with perfect freedom about those 
great questions. The deadening hand of orthodoxy 
was never laid upon them. 

I think that socialism will put an end to the incubus 



188 



CHARACTER 



of ecclesiastical domination. This does not mean 
that socialist principles are inconsistent with Christian- 
ity, or indeed prejudge religious controversies in 
any way. The common sense of the matter is that 
religious systems at all times all over the world are 
extremely conservative ; whereas a socialist society 
should be progressive and adaptable. A socialist 
state must therefore, in its own interest, confine 
ministers of religion to their own sphere ; they should 
not be allowed to interfere officially with govern- 
ment, nor law-making, and above all not with edu- 
cation. It is doubtful whether any educational 
establishments ought to be tolerated which are under 
sectarian control or are committed in any way to 
religious creeds. When this reform is carried through 
there will be a universal gain in freedom of thought 
and much more opportunity for original men. 

§ 5. And by capitalism. 

Ecclesiastical bodies are well organized and their 
tyranny over thought is palpable ; that of capitalism 
is more indefinite, but even more potent and widely 
spread. Capitalism represses speculative originality, 
not of set design, but because moneyed men vaguely 
feel that it is dangerous. Any thinker who is really 
interested in society is sure to question the foundations 
of our social structure and to put forward proposals 
for mitigating the domination of the rich. It is 
inevitable therefore that all the great host of persons 
who are committed to support the capitalist system 
should be inclined to discourage originality. 

The most potent agency for intellectual purposes, 
outside the^schools, is the newspaper press. The 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE 189 



ordinary Englishman reads few books, and those of 
poor quality for the most part ; but he reads news- 
papers continually, largely as a relief from boredom. 
Now the newspapers of our day are necessarily 
capitalist : they can be established and carried on 
only by very rich men ; they draw their chief revenue 
from advertisements which are inserted by, or appeal 
to, the capitalist classes. The mainstay of a news- 
paper consists in its advertising contracts, which are 
made for large amounts and for considerable periods 
of time. Journalists are as enlightened as any class 
in the community ; perhaps more than any, because 
they know so much of what is going on behind the 
scenes. But they are quite in the hands of capitalists 
and must shape their policy in accordance with 
the interests of their employers. 

To affront the mighty power of capitalism is 
hazardous, and most of the rash spirits who attempt 
it fare badly. It would be hopeless, but that capital- 
ists quarrel among themselves, and so the man who 
wants to tell the truth does get some measure of 
opportunity. The simplest method of suppressing 
unwelcome opinions is by neglect. Leave a revolu- 
tionary book unnoticed in the newspapers, and most 
people will never hear of it. When this becomes 
impossible, men of anti-capitalist opinions are abused 
without any regard for truth or probability. In my 
own younger days Messrs. Hyndman and Cunning- 
hame-Graham were conspicuous platform-advocates 
of socialism ; and I remember that from reading 
Tory newspapers I formed an idea of them as a 
pair of disreputable and seedy adventurers. Years 
afterwards I learnt with amazement that one was 
an unimpeachable specimen of upper middle-class 



190 



CHARACTER 



respectability, and the other an aristocrat, whose 
only failing was the super-excellence of his clothing. 
In America at the present time Mr. Upton Sinclair, 
who has earned the gratitude of the civilized world 
by his exposures of capitalistic methods, is suffering 
a bitter and unscrupulous persecution from mercenary 
journalists. 

Under socialism the character of the press must 
be greatly changed and perhaps its influence upon 
public opinion will be diminished. We shall prob- 
ably read these daily sheets much less ; because, 
for one thing, their financial, amatory and criminal 
' sensations ' will have ceased to interest us or have 
ceased altogether. The great advertising revenue 
will diminish — perhaps be made illegal, as a system 
of public dupery. What newspapers are left will 
use words to enlighten and not to darken counsel, 
and will receive with intelligent criticism any new 
ideas which promise to help mankind in the develop- 
ment of its spiritual life. 



CHAPTER XIV 



HAPPINESS 

§ I. The citizens of the socialist commonwealth will 
he well-disposed towards it and towards each 
other. 

It is time to sum up the general relations in which 
commonwealth and citizens will stand to each 
other under socialism, and to indicate the results 
which may be expected for the increase of happiness. 

The whole organization of the community to 
which I have given the name of commonwealth will 
be directed towards the welfare of the citizens, and 
there will be no interest which will thwart this aim. 
In our own society at present the promotion of 
welfare is greatly obstructed by privilege. All around 
us there are institutions about which we can only 
say that they came into existence somehow, perhaps 
by the operation of some sinister interest, and 
that they have never been changed, because some 
one or other profits by them. Take for example 
the leasehold system as applied to house-property. 
From the standpoint of public utility it is utterly 
indefensible — even conservative writers speak bitterly 
of it — and yet it continues to exist. The leasehold 
system and many other things of the kind are the 
result of beneficent private war." Under the 
stress of private war men have established privileges 

191 



192 



CHARACTER 



in different parts of the community — fortified castles, 
as it were, in which wealth may be accumulated and 
guarded against enemies. Speaking without meta- 
phor, we may say that privileges consist in claims 
upon the stock of wealth produced by the community 
without corresponding performance of service. Our 
landowning class, for example, enjoys vast privileges ; 
and there are many others. Most of these privileges 
are handed on from generation to generation in 
virtue of the privilege of birth. At present the 
commonwealth sanctions such claims to the detriment 
of the general body of citizens. 

When the government uses its vast power in 
favour of privileges, the mass of the citizens must 
be ill-disposed towards it. They must feel that they 
are being held down and exploited by the holders 
of privileges, and mocked by the apologists who set 
out to persuade them that the privileges of the rich 
are really conducive to the welfare of the poor. 
On the other hand, where the citizens are convinced 
that the commonwealth is aiming singlemindedly 
at their welfare, and that it is using for the purpose 
all the science which is available, they must be well- 
disposed towards it. Possibly a citizen here and 
there may be discontented on points of detail ; 
but this need not alienate him from the common- 
wealth, so long as he is convinced that it is animated 
by goodwill. In any case he has full liberty of 
advocating some other system and of persuading 
his fellow-citizens to adopt it. 

And the citizens must be well-disposed towards 
each other ; they are co-operators together in the 
noblest and most beneficent of all great institutions. 
There is a well-known magnificent passage of Burke 



HAPPINESS 



198 



about the citizen's proper attitude to the state. 

It is to be looked on with reverence, because it 
is not a partnership in things subservient only to 
the gross animal existence of a temporary and 
perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science ; 
a partnership in all art ; a partnership in every 
virtue, and in all perfection." The words do not 
agree very well with Burke's own Whiggism, and 
with his attacks upon the principles of the French 
Revolution ; but they describe well enough men's 
relations to each other under socialism. And there- 
fore there will be general friendship ; for nothing 
promotes that so much as working together in order 
to achieve excellent purposes. 

§ 2. They will then have it in their power to he happy. 

Under these circumstances the citizens must upon 
the whole be happy. Apart from physical well 
being, the main conditions of happiness are congenial 
work and friendly relations with one's fellow-men. 
A socialist community will certainly be a busy one 
and ought to be a friendly one. This then is one 
solid result which we could show for all the elaborate 
organization of socialism, a great increase in the 
happiness of the citizens. 

Happiness is distinct from virtue ; but it is a 
condition of virtue, and also a result of it. When 
a man is miserable from physical disease, it is im- 
possible for him to be fully virtuous ; because the 
disease hinders him from feeling those interests which 
are the main part of virtue. And he is injured 
similarly by causes of unhappiness which are not 
physical, such as by evil political conditions in his 

13 



194 



CHARACTER 



country. If the government for example is in 
the hands of unsympathetic ahens, as it was in 
Northern Italy under the Austrian domination, then 
the activities of public life are poisoned, and patriots 
become conspirators, with all the moral deterioration 
that conspiracy involves. And so it is also when 
men are made unhappy through wrongs inflicted by 
internal oppression from their owm coimtrymen ; 
as when they are embittered by the persecutions 
of religious bigotry, or by the economic oppression 
of employers and capitalists. Such things prevent 
men from taking an interest in their neighbours, 
except as fellow-rebels against an evil system which 
is spoiling their lives. On the other hand, when a 
man's health is good, when he is able to enjoy the 
life of his home and when he is free to co-operate 
with his neighbours in excellent activities, then he 
has full opportunity to lead a virtuous life ; and if 
he does so, the result will be happiness. 

Society cannot be organized directl}^ for happiness ; 
it is not man's primary business to be happy — apart 
from the fact that the conditions of happiness are 
all indefinite, all dependent upon the infinitely various 
capacities of men. We should not care to work 
and plan for the happiness of a " city of pigs," 
such as is described in Plato's Republic. No states- 
man in Australia would make it part of his programme 
to secure the happiness of the poor native tribes ; 
he might not wish them to suffer, but he would not 
see moral value in the gross pleasures which satisfy 
the ordinary ' blackfellow.' But in a civilized 
community statesmen can as a practical matter 
look out for manifestations of unhappiness, and, 
when they see them, consider if they cannot be re_ 



HAPPINESS 195 

moved somehow by readjustment of the common- 
wealth. 

So I think it will be under sociahsm. There will 
be no pledge that everyone is to be made happy. 
The directing statesmen will have their definite moral 
standards and will see that they are observed, even 
at the cost of some unhappiness. It is very likely, 
for example, that the stricter regulations which 
will be made to check various kinds of intemperate 
excess will make some men unhappy. There 
will always be some unhappiness somewhere, till 
that indefinitely distant millennial period when the 
nature of man is perfectly adjusted to a perfectly 
civilized life. The existence of unhappiness in a 
community will not necessarily call for political 
reform ; though, when it becomes considerable, 
it will be regarded as a danger-signal. What we 
may hope from a socialist organization of society 
is that on the one hand it will remove disabling causes 
of unhappiness, and on the other hand promote 
those various interests which are the content or fill- 
ing of a virtuous life. When the individual man is 
able to satisfy those interests without hindrance, 
he is necessarily happy. 



CHAPTER XV 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 

§ I. The moral reform which socialism will involve 
will change our standards of taste. 

To begin at this point in my book to offer criticism 
upon our standards of taste may seem like venturing 
late into a new field of inquiry ; but in this way I 
hope to illustrate further the improvement which 
reform of our social organization will produce in 
character. The defects in our standards of taste 
which I wish to mention are those only which can 
be traced plainly to features of society with which 
this book has hitherto concerned itself. I beheve 
that in the future we shall cease to admire many 
things we now deem admirable, and admire many 
things to which we are now indifferent ; socialism 
will change our morality, and with new moral 
standards we shall have new standards of taste. 

We know well how sharply we disagree with 
standards which are current in societies remote 
from our own. In the Icelandic sagas we recognize 
many fine things, but are disgusted by their blood- 
thirstiness and cruelty. The Arabian Nights (in 
expurgated translations) are still read with pleasure 
by children ; but to an adult mind they are almost 
intolerable because of the wretched social conditions 
which they reveal — the insolence of sultans and 

196 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 197 



slavemasters, and the degradation of women. The 
same point might be ilhistrated from plastic art. 
Much work which Orientals prize is condemned 
by us. Take such an object as the Chinese vase 
in Matthew Arnold's poem. 

And as a cunning workman in Pekin 

Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase. 

An emperor's gift — at early morn he paints. 

And all day long, and when night comes the lamp 

Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands. 

Vases in this style are no longer pleasing to a sensitive 
mind ; they are full of mechanical and slavish labour, 
they must have meant a dull, unhappy life for the 
workers who produced them. Similar thoughts occur 
to us when we visit the Pyramids of Egypt : we think 
with pity of the thousands of wretched captives, 
straining in the heat at the great stone blocks under 
the whips of the foremen ; we think with detestation 
of the proud king who looked on from his lofty 
canopied seat at the men who were slaving for his 
glory and gloated over their sufferings. 

I think that in the same way a better distribution 
of wealth will make us revise many of our present 
aesthetic judgements. In previous chapters I have 
attempted to say what moral changes may be expected 
to result from socialism ; but any statement has 
always had to be made in abstract terms, and therefore 
be wanting in vividness. I hope a few pages of 
aesthetic criticism, showing by examples how the 
new moral standards will take effect upon taste, 
will bring the standards themselves more plainly 
before the reader's mind. 



198 



CHARACTER 



§ 2. We shall cease to admire many of our present 
objects of decoration, because they are slavish. 

The changes which may be expected will be due 
largely to a change in the character of our leading 
class. In England the influence of the leading class 
is especially great, because the mass of the people 
have so little independent power of aesthetic judge- 
ment. For some reason or other the artistic capa- 
cities of the English are not above mediocrity ; we 
show poorly as compared with a truly gifted nation, 
the ancient Greeks for example, or the modern 
French. 

With the present constitution of society our 
leading class is, and must be, plutocratic. For his- 
torical reasons we in England are somewhat ashamed 
of this fact, and loath to recognize it frankly. The 
practical omnipotence of wealth is more apparent 
in America ; there the social constitution is the 
same as ours, but its realities are not camouflaged 
as they are with us by picturesque survivals of anti- 
quity — titles, coats of arms, pedigrees and preten- 
tious hyphenated names. Every American knows 
who are the leaders of society, and why they hold 
that enviable position. There is no show anywhere 
in America of standing up against money : the 
lawyers are entirely in the hands of the capitalists ; 
capitalists have a strong hold upon higher education ; 
every journalist knows that he can write only 
such things as capitalists approve ; the politicians 
take their stand upon capitalist platforms. The 
domination of our leading class is based upon the 
solid realities of wealth and power ; but it goes 
far beyond practical affairs, and enslaves the ima- 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 



199 



gination also of the classes below them. We poorer 
men cannot hope to lead those lives of good fortune, 
but we can read about them and enjoy their aspira- 
tions and emotions at second-hand ; we occupy 
houses and buy furniture which imitate theirs at 
a distance ; and we wear clothes which we hope 
that our wealthy neighbours will not utterly despise. 

Now, socialism will end the supremacy of riches. 
The men who will lead society in the future will 
be different ; and so they will admire different things 
in art and literature. 

In criticizing plutocratic taste it will be convenient 
to begin with decoration, by which I mean the 
ordinary adornment of objects of use and pleasure, 
such as houses, furniture and clothes. Other matters 
may be more important artistically, but this shows 
most plainly the artistic sensibility of the people. 

About the middle of last century Ruskin wrote 
a book full of beautiful enthusiasm which he called 
the Seven Lamps of Architecture ; it is sometimes 
mentioned, but not often read, I fear, by the present 
generation. It is doubtful if Ruskin could be 
called a socialist in the modern sense ; but there 
was never a mind more truly in harmony with 
the spirit of socialism, or more definitely opposed 
to the plutocratic ideals of his day. To his devout 
and reverent mind life appeared under the image 
of a vast Gothic cathedral ; and upon one of 
its many altars the genius of architecture had set 
its seven lamps, those of Sacrifice, Truth, Power, 
Beauty, Life, Memory and Obedience. Now modern 
society, competitive and plutocratic, seems to me 
something very different from this ; it suggests rather 
a great stall in a market-place at evening, kept by 



200 



CHARACTER 



a cheap-jack, or travelling auctioneer, full of bad 
and gaudy merchandise which the cheap- jack is 
vaunting at the top of his brazen voice. In front 
of the stall are large naphtha lamps or flares throwing 
their flickering light upon the outspread merchandise. 
These flares I think of as being like the principles of 
taste in our society. 

The flare which blazes brightest over our market- 
stall is the principle of Domination. English objects 
of adornment are not so slavish as the Chinese vase 
(an emperor's gift), but they carry all about them 
evidences of labour approximating to the servile 
condition. The plutocratic man lives for domination ; 
it is for that indulgence that he surrounds himself 
with a great establishment and takes measures to 
secure for himself on all occasions the evidences of 
mercenary respect. If we go into the houses of the 
rich, we see that all the things they use have been 
made by persons who laboured on them for wages, 
uncheered by any of the motives which make labour 
pleasant to men. 

Rich houses are comparatively few ; and so it 
would not matter much if this bad principle were 
limited to them. But it extends downwards through 
every grade of society. The room in which these 
words were written, the study of a country rectory, 
though far removed from magnificence, would illus- 
trate my meaning sufficiently well. Take, for 
example, the carpet. It is woven in an intricate 
pattern which has no artistic merit, because it repre- 
sents nothing in heaven or earth. Its variously 
coloured figures are quite meaningless, but they 
would, if they had been woven by hand, have 
cost the weaver many hours of tedious labour. 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 



201 



The study armchair and the coal-scuttle are orna- 
mented in a style which is equally painful ; they 
are plentifully adorned with grooves and flutings 
which have a speciously slavish look, though in 
fact they were made by machine-driven tools. 
And the same character is seen in the wall-paper, 
the mouldings of the ceiling, the bookcases, the 
curtains and other woven stuffs in the room. 

§ 3. Wasteful and full of pretence. 

Another flare is the principle of Waste. Wealth 
is no pleasure to the plutocratic man unless he can 
advertise the fact that he is rich ; and the easiest 
means of doing this is to waste conspicuously the 
wealth which poor men covet, and for the want of 
which they lead restricted lives. Among barbarians 
we see this tendency very plainly displayed. Every 
barbarous chief thinks it necessary to his self-respect 
that he should waste in a conspicuous way the 
substance which his subjects provide for him. Not 
only does he act so himself, using up more food, 
clothing and house-room than anyone needs for 
his personal comfort, but he keeps people about 
him, courtiers, retainers and menials, who waste 
vicariously for him.^ In our own society this is 
one function of the numerous servants who are kept 
by the very rich. They are literally * wasters,' 
persons whose express function it is to consume 
wealth. Somewhere in one of George Eliot's novels 
she describes a great English country-house, evi- 
dently one which she knew well in her native War- 

I See T. Veblen's admirable book, The Theory of the Leisure 
Class. 



202 



CHARACTER 



wickshire, in which day by day more food and drink 
was consumed and more light and firing burnt than 
in the whole of the neighbouring village. I do not 
suppose that this profusion was in any way dis- 
pleasing to the villagers. Poor people do not judge 
these things from the standpoint of sociology. I 
once heard a rich man severely blamed by a poor 
woman because he took the coals off his study fire 
before going to bed ; she thought it showed a despic- 
able meanness of character. So do the evil standards 
of our ruling class corrupt the morals of society. 

If we cannot ourselves waste expensive things, 
at least we like to read about those who can. The 
last English novel which fell into my hands was 
Mr. Arnold Bennett's Grand Babylon Hotel. It 
was full of opulence. The book was not meant to 
express Mr. Bennett's own social convictions or his 
views upon good taste ; it was written as a serial 
story to enhance the circulation of a periodical. 
Mr. Bennett knows his public, and he took care to 
put into his serial what the public wants. It is all 
about an American millionaire, rich beyond the 
dreams of avarice, who stays with his lovely daughter 
at a London hotel of incredible sumptuosity. Aft^r 
many surprising adventures, the young lady marries 
a German prince, and her father settles upon her a 
dowry of £200,000 a year. Throughout the tale we 
move in an atmosphere of lavish expenditure — music 
rendered by most skilful and highly paid musicians, 
gilded saloons and thick Turkey carpets, magnificent 
and obsequious waiters, exquisitely cooked dishes 
and rare choice wines. The millionaire and his 
daughter are not represented as getting much enjoy- 
ment from all the good cheer ; that would be gross 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 



20a 



and even ridiculous. But they can always order the 
food and wine and send it away half-consumed. At 
present the public likes to hear of such things, but 
I do not think it will continue to like them. Youth 
and beauty are always charming ; but the mise-en- 
scene must change from age to age. If Mr. Bennett 
were writing now, he would not marry his lovely 
American to a German prince ; and, if he were 
writing thirty years hence, he would not ' locate ' 
her in the Grand Babylon Hotel. 

Much of the decoration which we actually use is 
not really costly, but only pretends to be so. Pretence 
is the third flare which lights up our cheap-jack 
market stall. Here we have a twofold baseness ; 
our make-believe ornaments pretend to be wickedly 
and gloriously wasteful, but are in reality very cheap 
and machine-made. The rector's study-carpet looks 
as if the weaver had bent long hours over it, like the 
vase-painter of Pekin ; as a fact, the fabric was woven 
at high speed by a machine, and is cheaper than the 
roughest hand-made work. There is pretence in 
all the decoration around us in modern life — every- 
where substitutes and disguises : sometimes \ve 
simulate expenditure of labour ; sometimes w^e 
cover cheap material with dear material and pretend 
that the whole is solid, as when we glue mahogany 
over deal. 

Fortunately decoration now is not so dishonest 
as it used to be ; upper-class people at least no 
longer ' paint and grain ' the woodwork of their 
homes, or cover brick-houses with a thin layer of 
stucco, while leaving the brick unadorned in the 
back elevation. And there is less need to jibe at 
the pretentious, because Ruskin has dealt so faith- 



^04 



CHARACTER 



fully with it. But I venture to differ from Ruskin 
in one point ; I do not think that expensive materials 
should be used, merely because they are expensive, 
in architectural structures or anywhere else. Ruskin 
justifies such expense by what he calls the Lamp 
of Sacrifice. The only sacrifice which seems to 
me good is the personal expenditure of labour and 
thought upon worthy objects. It does not seem 
_good to set other people to work laboriously upon 
objects, and then use them, even to decorate a church. 
But, if wasteful expense is bad, the make-believe 
of wasteful expense is doubly detestable. 

§ 4. There will he change in literary taste ; much of 
the old work will become alien to us. 

Literature touches life at more points than decora- 
tion ; and therefore social conditions manifest 
themselves even more decisively in it. And the 
changes of taste there can be brought more to an 
objective test. When a book becomes unfashionable, 
it ceases to be bought and goes out of print ; whereas 
a piece of furniture may cease to be made, no one 
quite knows why, and yet be generally approved 
as good. What I complain of in our literary criticism 
is that it lags so far behind the times. It is not 
quick to apprehend the changes which are just 
beginning to appear — that is excusable : it also 
jgoes on praising old work long after it is out of 
harmony with the whole system of ideas by which 
we actually live. 

There are difiiculties in using a contemporary book 
to illustrate the dependence of literary taste upon 
-Standards of morality. Mr. Bennett's serial, men- 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 205 



tioned above, would have done very well for the 
purpose ; domination and waste flare through it on 
every page. Still better would have been one of the 
novels of Mr. W. E. Norris, who always writes about 
people with large private incomes — county families 
with country seats and houses in Belgravia. Just 
because of their wealth, and for no other reason, 
we are expected to be interested in these people, 
in their ups and downs of fortune, in their court- 
ships and adulteries. There must be a good sale 
for this kind of literature — otherwise it would not 
be produced ; there must be a large class of readers 
who admire this kind of life : but a socialist will only 
marvel that such things can be. So far from following 
with sympathy the careers of Mr. Norris's characters, 
he is tempted to cry out passionately that such 
people should be abolished from the earth — chloro- 
formed, or at least put through some vigorous but 
wholesome training which would turn them into 
useful citizens. But, after all, most of my readers 
have probably never wasted time over Mr. Norris's 
books. Something which is better known, some 
book of Mr. H, G. Wells for example, would illustrate 
my points only in part ; the best contemporary work 
is already deeply influenced by a spirit akin to 
socialism. Perhaps the clearest proof of the pene- 
tration of such ideas is to be found in the comic 
papers ; the attitude of Punch towards rank and 
wealth is distinctly less respectful to-day than it 
was twenty years ago. 

I will choose for illustration then an old master-- 
piece, a play of Shakespeare which everyone knows, 
and which critics are still wont to speak of as entirely 
admirable. Such a work may be viewed in two 



^06 



CHARACTER 



ways ; as an effort of mental construction and 
insight, or as representing situations, persons and 
experiences which enhst our sympathies. It may 
be admired from the former point of view long after 
we have grown cold to it from the latter. In many 
of the ancient Greek plays, those wonderfully perfect 
products of art, the gods are utterly detestable and 
the passions of the human personages have mostly 
become alien to us. And so it is with much of 
Shakespeare. 

I choose the play of Twelfth Night, not because 
it is specially suitable, but because it happens to 
be the last I have seen acted ; the impression from 
seeing a play is much more powerful than that 
which we get from reading it. Twelfth Night belongs 
to a period of English society long previous to the 
establishment of our present plutocracy. The moral 
objections which the socialist feels to it are partly 
those which might be evoked by any work pervaded 
by deep respect for wealth and power ; partly they 
are evoked by a spirit of domination which bases 
itself more upon privilege of ancestry than upon 
wealth. I mention this latter point merely to 
illustrate the conservatism of our critics ; if they 
■do not see that Twelfth Night is utterly out of 
harmony with present society, they are not likely to 
appreciate the distinctive standpoint of a socialist's 
criticism. 

I know that Twelfth Night is usually spoken of 
as a charming work of art. I can only say that, 
as I watched it recently, it made a painful impression 
on my mind. I give the reasons for the impression, 
so far as I can analyse them, just for what they are 
worth. 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 207 



The main action of the play is concerned with 
the love affairs of the Duke of Illyria and the Countess 
Olivia. Now in himself the Duke is not a notable 
person ; he stands for no good cause and represents 
no principle which intelligent people now can up- 
hold. It is not a matter of special importance whom 
he marries, or whether he marries anyone at all. 
The mere fact that he and Olivia are represented 
as young and handsome is enough to give them some 
interest ; but that by itself is not adequate to carry 
the action of the play. Shakespeare of course relied 
upon the interest which must be awakened by their 
exalted rank. In the Elizabethan age the affairs 
of a reigning duke were always deeply interesting. 
But we have got past all that. The proper feeling 
of to-day is commiseration for this young fellow, 
who seems to have had some good qualities and was 
at any rate free from the grosser vices of the tyrant ; 
we are sorry to see him placed in so lamentable a 
station of life, and half entertain a hope, which we 
know to be absurd, that he will have the good sense 
to hand over his dominions to a republican form 
of government. As for his palace, his gold-laced 
robes, his flunkeys and the abject attentions of his 
courtiers — such things should fill us with disgust. 
Seeing the gold lace, we think of the poor lace-working 
women bending with straining eyes over all this 
costly vanity ; v/e think of the tailors squatting 
cross-legged and stitching at the needlework of 
his slashes and galoons. The flunkeys also do not 
impress us ; we may be sure that they revenge 
themselves for their humiliations by jeering at their 
master when they grow confidential downstairs in 
the servants' hall. 



208 



CHARACTER 



The secondary comic relief of the play is given 
by the drinking scenes between Sir Toby Belch, 
Olivia's uncle, his half-baked friend Sir Andrew 
Aguecheek, Olivia's domestic clown or jester and 
other servants. Now to thoughtful persons such 
scenes are altogether painful. These wretched 
drunken men reeling about the stage, blethering and 
bawling their senseless tavern catches, are revolting 
to those who know what alcoholism really means. 
In the days of Elizabeth the feeling was different ; 
' drunk as a lord ' was not a merely humorous phrase, 
it represented a recognized privilege of the nobility. 
In a proper state of society Sir Toby Belch would 
be secluded in a retreat for dipsomaniacs. At any 
rate, he and his friend would not be allowed to parade 
their beastly vices ; and, if they did, no one would 
laugh at them. 

Perhaps the most pitiable character in the play 
is the Countess Olivia's clown or domestic fooL 
It was not evident, as I saw the play acted, whether 
he was really half-witted or only pretended to be so. 
Probably the former. But, in either case, how 
shocking ! What are we to think of the good taste 
and humanity of the proud Countess who kept this 
poor creature about her house to amuse her at dinner, 
or whenever her vacant mind had nothing else to 
occupy it ? Could any English lady of to-day even 
think of such a thing ? 

The principal comic relief of the play, and the 
chief interest for a modern audience, is given by 
Malvolio. I know that the misfortunes of Olivia's 
presumptuous steward are supposed to be amusing ; 
I can only say that, with every wish to be amused, 
I could not laugh at them. Malvolio is a dignified 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 



209 



and most respectable servant, who by way of a 
practical joke on the part of Sir Toby Belch and his 
friends is induced to make love to his mistress. 
In punishment for this presumption he is, in a 
moral sense, pilloried or tarred and feathered for 
the amusement of the audience. Now the sight of 
very painful punishments and public humiliations 
was not at allunpleasingtothe British in Shakespeare's 
time. Public hangings were very frequent ; heretics 
and witches were burnt alive in market-places ; 
within the lifetime of Shakespeare's father men 
and women were publicly boiled alive ; every week 
in London persons were fastened in the pillory, 
and there, if unpopular, were pelted with rotten eggs 
and stones, so that they were actually done to death 
or their eyes knocked out. Such were the punish- 
ments which good citizens thought right to inflict 
upon persons who had forfeited public sympathy. 
Now, Malvolio was evidently regarded by Shakespeare 
as having forfeited sympathy by the mere fact 
of making love to his employer, whatever encourage- 
ment he might fancy he had received. There is 
to-day a strong caste-feeling in England, which is 
very noticeable and offensive to those who are used 
to Scottish life, where it hardly exists. But in Eliza- 
bethan England it was stronger still. Unequal 
marriages are not infrequent in our modern plays ; 
but in Shakespeare's day they would be felt to be 
intolerably shocking, as unpleasing as the marriage 
of a white girl to a negro is to us, and equally un- 
suitable to be represented on the stage. 

The further we get away from such social con- 
ditions, the less we are pleased by the humiliations 
of Malvolio. Under the best of circumstances a 

14 



210 



CHARACTER 



house-steward or butler is in an unlucky position ; 
he has no home of his own and no private family, 
and therefore has only half the dignity of a man. 
If he goes wrong, he must, of course, be chastised ; 
but I cannot imagine any decent man of our time 
getting pleasure from giving the chastisement, or 
in seeing it given. Two or three generations ago 
there were parents and schoolmasters who seem to 
have enjoyed thrashing defenceless little boys — at 
least Mr. Wackford Squeers is supposed to have done 
so. And even so late as the days of Charles Dickens 
there were no doubt persons who enjoyed seeing 
chastisement inflicted upon butlers who could not 
hit back at their tormentors. In one of Mark 
Twain's books there is an account of the tarring 
and feathering of two unlucky vagabonds who had 
put an American township up against them. Mark 
Twain, who must have witnessed a scene of this 
kind, evidently thought it horrible ; but the mob 
seems to have enjoyed it. I do not think that a 
tarring-and-feathering would be enjoyed by the 
kind of people who read this book ; nor would they 
really enjoy watching the humiliations of Malvolio, 
if they did not feel it must be all right because it 
is Shakespeare. 

To sum up, the chief motive of Twelfth Night 
is drawn from caste ; a form of caste which is based 
partly upon wealth, partly upon ancestry. Any 
caste-motive has already become somewhat dis- 
pleasing to modern society, and will be utterly 
detestable under socialism. 

In saying all this I do not mean to put any blame 
upon our greatest English poet. He was unrivalled 
in his knowledge of humanity, and made consummate 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 



211 



use of his material. But he was a theatre-lessee 
with the livelihood of many subordinates in his 
hands ; he was also an excellent man of business. 
And he knew what would please his audience. The 
soundness of his judgement is attested by the fact 
that he was able to retire on a handsome competence 
long before the usual age. He worked under the 
conditions of his time, as every artist must ; we 
could not expect him to think of the taste of 
audiences three hundred years after he had passed 
away. 

§ 5. The standards of taste under socialism ivill con- 
form to the new social organization. 

As to the standards which will prevail in the future, 
it is hard to say much more than that they will be 
in harmony with the new social organization, and 
will therefore differ greatly from those which prevail 
now. The following are the social facts which seem 
likely to have most influence. 

There will be little or nothing of what we now call 
' money-grubbing.' There ought consequently to 
be a great increase in the artistic sensibility of the 
people. When the pressure of all these sordid 
cares is gone, then the human spirit will grow and 
flower as God meant that it should. We marvel 
at the artistic vigour of the Middle Ages ; one of 
the main conditions, I think, was the absence of 
economic competition. 

Persons who are interested in decoration will do 
much more with their own hands ; they will not 
lazily pay people to work for them. If people want 
their walls decorated, they will mostly do it them- 



212 



CHARACTER 



selves. We shall then not see so much wall-paper 
with silly conventional patterns turned out by 
machiner^^ We shall see many more coloured 
pictures done by the householders, and fewer 
colourless engravings bought in shops. The great 
mass of the pictorial work produced will doubtless 
show a low degree of skill ; but this will not neutralize 
its intellectual and moral value for the producers. 
They will gain the immense advantages which come 
from first-hand knowledge of artistic processes and 
from the power to use the tools of the craft. There 
will still flourish the ver}' skilful professional artists 
whose works are shown in exhibitions. But the 
public will stud}^ their works more in the hope of 
learning how their effects are achieved than in the 
spirit of non-performing connoisseurship which is 
so common to-day. Great painters will be teachers 
primarily, just as professional golfers are. All 
golfers take pleasure in seeing perfect golf ; but 
they do not wish Vardon and Braid to play their 
games for them. And so the great landscapists 
of the future will show us how to paint, and we shall 
follow their teaching as well as we can ; or we shall 
ourselves evolve a style, which may be a poor 
thing but our own. 

In a socialist society clothes and furniture will 
be much simpler than they are now and more home- 
made. There will be manufacture, of course, other- 
wise the community would be poor ; but not manu- 
facture of decoration. If ladies for example desire 
embroider}^ on their dresses, they will work it them- 
selves. And so of the furniture. And such decora- 
tion as our houses contain will be honest ; we shall 
avoid anything of the character of veneering. 



STANDARDS OF TASTE 



213 



There must also be a great change in architecture. 
The houses must be smaller and simpler, and all 
buildings more suitable to wholesome human needs. 
A college for example would not be built in the style 
of a great baronial castle, with a formidable towered 
gateway protecting nothing. ^ 

WTiat the changes will be in literature is a subject 
too vast and too uncertain to be dealt with here ; 
because, even more than with art, the course of 
development depends always upon personalities whose 
appearance no one can foresee. In regard to fiction 
and drama the tendency will be to put the interest 
more on to development of character and less on 
to situations. For the literature of the future a 
great deal of the present situational interest must 
be quite lacking. There will be very little about 
money ; no ambitions or struggles to gain a fortune 
or to avoid losing one, no pecuniary intrigues or 
crimes. The other main interest of our day is the 
amatory ; that will always remain, but greatl}^ 
changed. We know how we feel towards Thackeray's 
heroines — poor, innocent Victorian creatures, bullied 
and patronized by their lovers, with no assets but 
their sex-attraction and a few domestic virtues. 
Well, I think that we shall have something of the 
same feeling towards most of the fictional women 
of the early twentieth century. They will strike 
us as insipid and downtrodden. But we shall 
recognize that most of what we dislike is due to their 
economic dependence and their pitiable lack of 
instruction. Anyone who has had the luck to enjoy 
the friendship of well-educated women knows how 

I The basest example known to me is Mansfield College, 
Oxford, 



214 



CHARACTER 



immensely superior they are in attractiveness to 
the Victorian type of Thackeray. We cannot predict 
in what forms of Uterary art the novehst and dramatist 
of the future will present them ; but we may be sure 
that the tale of human love, when a master tells 
it, will not be less beautiful and touching than 
of old. 



Printed in Great Britain by 
UNWlfi BROTHERS, LIIVUTKD, THE GRfiSHAM PRESS, LONDON' AND WOKING 



